F 826 
.H739 
Copy 5 



Attorney and Counselor at Law, 

Salt Lake City, Utah. 






\ 




li 



^'AH «OSRD-OK-7lf»ffll>lHI1 



^"^^ 



1-1879*- 



»:?^-^^' 



Republican Book and Railroac rrintini; House, Omaha Nkb. 



THHUTAIl BOARD OF TRADE. 



Tuos. H. ,Ii)NKS, rresi(knt, 
W. S. McCoHNU'K, Treasurer, 
O. .1. IIoM.isTKU, Secretary, , 



OFriCKIlS. 



Salt Lake City, U. 'i 



VICE riJKSI DENTS. 



II. W. Lawkknck, Salt L'^^.ke City. 

Jas. ScHiMKCKoiTR, Alt.-i City. 

E. P. Fk«1!Y, Park City, 

Jas. F. BitADi.KY, liiiiitiiain C^afioii. 

Fkki). J. KiKSKi,, O^deii. 



W.M. Goodwin, 
EnwAKD W. Fox, 

W. S. GODBE, ■ 

11. S. Lubbock, 

,]. E, .loiINSON, 



Logan. 
Manti. 
Frisco. 
Silver R 
St. Geor 



DIRECTORS. 



Gko. a. Lowr, 
J. R. Walkkk, 

L. E. HOLDK.N, 

R. C. Chamhkus, 

A. GODBK, 



Taos. R. .JoN'Ks, 

O. J. HoI.I.ISTKU, 



Salt Lake City, 



(Jix). M. Scott, 
II. W. Lawrknck, 
W. F. Jamks, 
J NO. T. Lyncu, 
E. Sklls, 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 



Salt Lake C 



Salt Lake City. II. W. Lawkknck, Salt Lake ( 

" " Anthony Godhk, " 

Gko. M. Scott, Salt Lake City. 



i 



.\W&J!X»)U, ^'^»'^^^V|>WJ^V 



THE 



Resources and Attractions 



TERRITORY OF UTAH. 



PREPARED BY THE 



UTAH BOARD OF TRADE. 



Printed at thk Omah\ Rkpublican ruBLisiiiNG House. 
187 9. 



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Wl^ 






At :» iiicc'tiwg of the Utah lioard of Trade, held in the District Court 
IJooin, on the evenins;; of April 30, the following descriptive and statisti- 
cal statem^Mit of the resources and attractions of Utah .was submitted by 
the Secretary, approved by unanimous vote of th.e Board, and 15,000 
copies^ ordered printed for gratuitous) distribution. 

Thos. K. Jones, President. 

O. J. HoLLisTEK, Secretary 
Salt Lake City, U. T., Mhj I, 1«7». 






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0- 



^^ 



^ 



THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 



CHAPTER I. 

GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, TOPOGRAPHY, GENERAL FEATURES. 

Utah Territory is situated north of Arizona, east of Nevada, south of 
Idalio, and west of Colorado ; between the 37th and 42d parallels of north 
latitude, and the 109th and 114th meridians west from Greenwich. It has a 
maximum length of 325 miles by a breadth of 300 ; area, 84,476 square miles ; 
population, estimated at 130,000. It is intersected from north to south by 
the Wasatch Mountains, dividing it nearly equally between the Great Basin 
and the basin of the Rio Colorado. The altitude of the surface on both sides 
of this mountain range is about the same, the valleys 4,000 to G,000 feet 
above sea level; the mountains, 6,000 to 13,000. West of the Wasatch, the 
drainage is into lakes and sinks which have no outlet, the largest of which is 
Great Salt Lake, with an elevation of 4,260 feet, a shore line of 350 miles, 
and an area of 3,000 to 4,000 square miles. It receives the Bear and Weber, 
and many smaller streams, and, also, the discharge from Utah Lake through 
the River Jordan. The latter is sweet water, about 10 by 30 miles in extent, 
the receptacle of American. Provo, and Spanish Rivers. There are numer- 
ous valleys, the lowest of them higher than the average summit of the Alle- 
ghanies. Below are the ascertained altitudes of representative lakes, rivers, 
springs, valleys, and towns, namely : 

Great Salt Lake 4,260 

Utah Lake 4,500 

Sevier Lake 4,600 

Little Salt Lake, Paragoonah 6,220 

Bear Lake, Laketown 6,000 

Bear River, Randolph 6,440 

Bear River, Hampton's Bridge 4,540 

Weber River, Kamas 6,300 

Weber River, Ogden 4,300 

Provo River, Heber 5,574 

Provo River, Provo 4,520 

San Pitch River, Mt. Pleasant 6,090 

San Pitch River, Gunnison 5,144 

Sevier River, Pangnitch 6,270 

Sevier River, Bridge 4,765 

Cache Valley, Logan 4,550 

Salt Lake City, Signal Office 4,350 

Fort Douglas, Above Salt Lake City 4,800 

Rush Valley, Tooele County 5,200 

Skull Valley, Tooele County 4,850 

Deep Creek, Tooele County 5,230 

Nephi, Juab County 4,927 

Fillmore, Millard County 6,024 



4 THK RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

Antelope Springs, Millard County 5,850- 

Beaver, Beaver County. . . . ." 6,050 

Fort Cameron, Beaver County 6,100 

Wall Wall Springs, Beaver County 5,450 

Buckliorn Springs, Iron County 5,090 

Desert Springs, Iron County 5,880 

Iron City, Iron County 6,100 

Cedar City, Iron County 5,726 

St. George, Washington County 2,!)00 

Diamond, Tintic Mines 6,370 

Strawberry Valley, Wasatch County 7,716 

Rabbit Valley, Sevier County 6,820 

Kanab, Kane County 4,900 

Paria, Kane County 4,562 

Kanarra, Him of Basin 5,420 

Flora. — On the mountains and along the water courses are found the 
following trees, shrubs and vines, to-vvit: cottonwood, dwarf birch, 
willow, quaking aspen, mountain maple, box-elder, scrub cedar, scrub 
oak, mountain oak, white, red, yellow and pinou pine, white spruce, 
balsam-flr, mountain mahogany, common elder, dwarf hawthorn, sumac, 
wild hop, wild rose, dwarf sunflower, and of edible berries, service berry> 
bull-berry, wild-cherry, wild currant, etc. Most of the plants belong to the 
coinpositece, crua'fere(e, leguminosea', boraginacece, or rosacece. 

Fauna. — Among the animals are the coyote, gray wolf, wolverine, moun- 
tain sheep, buffalo, (now extinct in Utah), antelope, elk, moose; black 
tailed, white tailed, and mule deer; grizzly, black and cinnamon bear; 
civet cat, striped squirrel, gopher, prairie dog, beaver, porcupine, badger, 
skunk, wild cat, lynx, sage and jack-rabbit and cottontail. Birds: golden 
and bald eagle and osprey; horned, screech, and burrowing owl; duck; 
pigeon; sparrow, sharp-shinned and goshawk; woodpecker, raven, yellow- 
billed magpie, jay, blakbird, ground robbin, long sparrow; purple, grass, 
and Gambell's fiuch; fly-catcher, wren, water-ouzel, sky lark, English snipe, 
winter yellow-legs, spotted sand piper, great blue hen n, bittern, stork, 
swan, pelican, Peale's egret, ground dove, red-shafted flicker, mallard and 
green-winged teal, goose, ptarmigan, humming bird, mountain quail, sage 
cock and pine hen. Reptiles: R.ittle-snake, water-snake, harlequin snake, 
and lizards. The tarantula and scorpion are found but are not common. 

Geology. — The greater part of the rock of the interior mountain area is 
a series of conformably stratified beds,*reaching from the early Azoic to the 
late Jurassic. In the latter these beds were raised, and the Sierras, the 
Wasatch, and tiie parallel ranges of the Great Basin were the consequence. 
In this upheaval important masses of granite broke through, accompanied 
by quartz, porpliyries, felsite rocks, and notably sienitic granite with some 
granulite and grctsen occasionally. Then, the Paclflc Ocean on the west, 
and the ocean that filled the Mississippi Basin on the east, laid down a 
system of Cretaceous and Tertiary strata. These outlying shore beds, sub- 
sequently to the Miocene, were themselves raised and folded, forming the 
Pacific Coast Range and the chains east of the Wasatch; volcanic rocks 
accompanying this upheaval as granite did the former one. Still later a 
final series of disturbances occurred, but these last had but small connection 
"with the region under consideration. 

* Clarence King's Explanations 40th parallel. 



GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, TOPOGRAPHY, ETC. 5 

There is a general parallelism of the mountain chains, and all the 
structural features of local geology, the ranges, strike of great areas of 
upturned strata, larger outbursts of gigantic rocks, etc., are nearly parallel 
with the meridian. So the precious metals arrange themselves in parallel 
longitudinal zones. There is a zone of quicksilver, tin, and chromic iron on 
the coast ranges ; one of copper along the foot-hills of the Sierras ; one of 
gold further up the Sierras, the gold veins and resultant placers extending 
far into Alaska ; one of silver, with comparatively little base metal, along 
the east base of the Sierras, stretching into Mexico; silver mines with 
complicated associations through Middle Mexico, Arizona, Middle Nevada, 
and Central Idaho; argentiferous galena through New Mexico, Utah and 
Western Montana; and, still further east, a continuous chain of gold 
deposits in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. The Jurassic 
disturbances in all probability is the dating point of a large class of lodes : 
a, those wholly enclosed in the granites, and b, those in metamorphic beds 
of the series extending from the Azoic to the Jurassic. To this period may 
be referred the gold veins of California, those of the Humboldt mines, and 
those of White Pine, all of class b ; and the Reese River veins, partly a, and 
partly b. The Colorado lodes are somewhat unique, and in general belong 
to the ancient type. To the Tertiary period may be definitely assigned the 
mineral veins traversing the early volcanic rock ; as the Comstock Lode and 
veins of the Owyhee District, Idaho. By far the greater number of 
metaliferous lodes occur in the stratified metamorphic rocks or the ancient 
eruptive rocks of the Jurassic upheaval ; yet very important, and, perhaps, 
more wonderfully productive, have been those silver lodes which lie wholly 
in the recent volcanic formations. 

Topography, General Features. — The settled part of Utah lies along the 
western base of the Wasatch Mountains, which run through the heart of 
the Territory from north to south, reaching their greatest altitude near Salt 
Lake City, (where they abut on the Uintah Range coming from the east, 
forming the cross-bar of a T,) and almost losing themselves in the sandstone 
plateau of the Rio Colorado in the south. Abreast of Salt Lake City the 
Wasatch Range is 10,000 to 12,000 feet in altitude. Here, within a small 
area, rise the Bear and Weber Rivers, which empty into Salt Lake ; the Provo, 
which empties into Utah Lake ; and some of the main aflluents of the Green 
River, which, with the Grand, become the Rio Colorado, lower down. It is 
in the vicinity of the heads of these rivers that the Emma, the Flagstaff, the 
Vallejo, the Ontario, McHenry and various other well-known mines are 
situated. Nearly one-half of the Territory lies south of the Uintah Range, 
•and east of the Wasatch Range proper, and is drained by the Green and 
Colorado rivers and their tributaries. Its general altitude along these 
streams is between 4,000 and 5,000 feet; it is much broken by mountains, 
and is but partially explored and not settled at all. It contains many thous- 
and square miles of fine grazing country, above the Grand Canon, with more 
or less arable land, and no one yet knows what mineral treasures. It is 
believed that the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, after being drawn 
to the head of the River Arkansas by the mineral attractions of Leadville, 
will find an easy way through this region, entering the Great Basin via some 



6 THE RESOURCES OP UTAH. 

of the feasible railroad passes of the Wasatch. A wide strip of the western 
part of tlic Territory is lal<c, sinlc, mountain or desert. Tlie inhabited part 
is chiefly a narrow belt, watered by the streams of the western slope of the 
Wasatch Range, which lose themselves in inland lakes or basins. The 
largest and best known of these is the Great Salt Lake Basin. 

Great Salt Lake Basm.— Including the valley of Bear River up to the 
Gates on the north, the Utah Basin on the south, whose waters are dis- 
charged into Great Salt Lake, through Jordan River, it is 200 miles in length 
by 40 or 50 in widtli. The priucipal streams which are lost in Great Salt 
Lake are the Malad and Bear, the latter 300 miles long, on the north ; Box 
Elder and Willon' creeks, Ogden and Weber rivers on the east; and City, 
Mill and the Cottonwood creeks and tiie River Jordan on the south. Into 
Utah Lake flow the American, Provo, and Spanish forks, though they are not 
forks but independent mountain streams, and Salt Creek. All of them but 
the Malad have their sources in the Wasatch Range, which collects the snows 
in winter that give them life and being. Where they emerge from their 
canons, settlements have been maile on them, and their waters appropriated, 
so far as it can be cheaply doup, for the purposes of irrigation, and in some 
cases, of furnishing power for mills. Of these settlements, the largest is 
Salt Lake City, located about centrally as regards the length of the entire 
basin, at the base of the Wasatch Range, ten or twelve miles from the south- 
east shore of Salt Lake, and containing a population of about 25,000. The 
city is supplied with water by City Creek. It is laid out with broad streets 
and sidewalks, and is built up more or less for two miles square, shade and 
fruit trees largely hiding the buildings in the summer season. It has ample 
hotel accommodations, gas, water and street cars; is peaceful and orderly; 
is connected with the outside world and adjacent points of interest or 
business by rail. Enjoying the most healthy and agreeable climate of per- 
haps any large town in tlie United States, with street cars running to the 
famous Warm Springs, and the bathing shores of Salt Lake but a half-hour's 
ride on the rail distant; with the peaks of the Wasatch, the Oquirrh, and 
other ranges milling the clouds at every point of the horizon ; with pic- 
turesque mountain canons threaded by trout streams accessible by rail, it is 
one of the most attractive places of summer resort for tourists seeking 
health or pleasure in all the world. The eastern edge of Salt Lake Basin is 
dotteil with settlements, and is highly cultivated wherever water can be got 
on the ground. There are the North String, Bear River City, Corinne, 
Brigham City, Willard, North Ogden, Ogden, Kaysville, Farmiugton, Ceuter- 
ville, Bountiful, Salt Lake City, the Cottonwoods, Sandy, West Jordan, 
Deweyville, Lehi, American Fork, Pleasant Grove, Provo, Springville, 
Spanish Fork, Salem, Payson, Santaquin, Mona, Nephi, and Levan. Ogden, 
at the intersection of the east and west and north and south railroads, is the 
town next In importance to Salt Lake City, the capital. It is in the forks of 
Ogden and Weber rivers, is within a short drive of flue fishing and mountain 
scenery, and is rapidly improving. The Salt Lake Basin at large has an 
altitude of about 4,500 feet above the sea, and is the paradise of the farmer, 
the horticulturist, and the grower of fruit. Cut off from it by a low range, 
now surmounted by the Utah & Nortliern Railway, toward the northeast, is- 
Cache Valley. 



GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, TOPOGRAPHY, ETC. 7 

Cache, San Pete and Sevier Valleys. — Cache Valley is oval in shape, per- 
haps tea by fifty miles in extent, watered by Logan and Blacksmith forks of 
Bear River, and by the latter itself, and sustaining a settlement wherever a 
stream breaks out of the inclosing mountains. Logan is the principal town 
of Cache Valley, and thence one drives eastward through Logan Canon forty 
or fifty miles to Bear Lake Valley, Bear River here flowing toward the north. 
Further on, it bends to the west and southward, and down through Cache 
Valley, finds its way to Salt Lake. Cache and Bear Lake valleys have a score 
of towns, and 15,000 inhabitants. To the southeast of Salt Lake Basin, and 
to be connected with it by rail through Salt Creek or Neplii Canon, this 
season, lies San Pete Valley, called the granary of Utah, surrounded by 
mountains except on the south, where the San Pitch River breaks through 
into the Sevier, and sustaining eight thriving towns, all still in their infancy, 
though founded several years ago. San Pete and Cache valleys are fine grain 
growing sections, but haying colder winters, are not so well adapted to fruit 
raising as the Salt Lake Basin. Next southward is the Sevier River, which 
has its source in Fish (Indian, Panguitch) Lake, near the southern boundary 
of the Territory, and runs like Bear River a long way north before it finds a 
way out of the mountains, and turning to the southv/est is finally lost in 
Sevier Lake. Most of the streams in tlie southwest lose themselves in small 
lakes or sinks, that is, si\ch as rise to the northward of the divide between 
the Great Basin and the Rio Colorado country. The Sevier River Valley is 
occupied like all the other Utah valleys (and there are many in the recesses of 
the Wasatch, and some outlaying and disconnected with that range, although of 
minor importance, which have not been particularly noticed), where a stream 
breaks out of the adjoining mountains by a settlement ; but, like the other 
streams, the full capacity of the Sevier River for irrigation has not been 
called into requisition. 

The western third of the Territory from end to end is an alternation of 
mountain, desert, sink, and lake, with few oases of arable or grazing lands. 
• Great Salt Lake covers an area of 3,000 to 4,000 square miles, and the desert 
west of it a still larger area. The Sevier, Preuss, and Little Salt Lakes, 
all together, are small, in comparison. Formerly, a mighty river flowed 
northward from the vicinity of Sevier Lake to the westward of Great Salt 
Lake, the dry bed of which, nearly a mile in width, must be crossed in 
going west from Salt Lake City to Deep Creek. Since it dried up hills and 
spurs of mountains have been upheaved in its course, but the old channel 
continues on its way up hill and down, and over them all. Divided off from 
Great Salt Lake by a sort of causeway 800 feet high is Rush Valley, contain- 
ing a lake covering 20 to 30 square miles, where 2J years ago there was hay 
land and a military reservation. This, as well as the accompanying filling 
up of Great Salt Lake, shows a decided aqueous increase in Salt Lake Basin 
within that time. Rush Valley has mining and agricultural settlements, 
but much more pastoral than arable land; and so has Skull Valley, to the 
westward. But from these south to the rim of the Basin, there are only 
occasional habitable spots and they are due to springs. The mountains are 
the source of the wealth of Utah, present and prospective, which consists 
in water anil metals. They gather the snows in winter which feed the 



8 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

Streams in summer. In the northern part of the Territory the Wasatch 
Itanije attains in {jencral a high altitude with a mass in proportion. There 
is a large accuniuhition of snow in winter, and the streams are correspond- 
ingly large and numerous. In the southern part of the Territory the main 
ranire is lower and li;ss massive; the average temperature is higher, of 
course; tliere is less snow, smaller and fewer streams and more desert in 
proportion. This part of the Territory is not rich in agricultural resources. 
The isolated ranges in the Great Basin seldom give rise to streams of much 
magnitude, and the intervening valleys partake more of the desert character. 
But all the mountains, so far as known, are full of minerals, and there is 
generally water enough for the purposes of mining and reducing them. 

Such is a general view of the leading features of the geography, geology, 
and topography of Utah. It has been not inaptly called the Switzerland of 
America. With every variety of climate, it is generally salubrious and 
agreeable, not given to extremes, and healthy. There are the valleys for 
tlie farmer, the gardener, and the fruit grower; the foot hill slopes and river 
terraces for the stock and sheep raiser; the mountains for the miner, the 
scenery in the canons, the trout in the streams, the water fowl of the lakes 
and rivers, and the grouse of the prairies, for the pleasure seeker; the ther- 
mal soda and sulphur springs, the mountain lakes and breezes, the Salt Lake 
air and bathing, the latter attended by none of the danger and discomfort of 
sea bathing, for the invalid. 



CLIMATE, METEOROLOGICAL STATISTICS, ETC. 



CHAPTER II. 

CLIMATE, METEOROLOGICAL STATISTICS, SANITARY 
ADVANTAGES. 

The climate of a mountainous country like Utah, will vary considerably 
with its varying altitudes and exposures. The inhabited parts of the Terri- 
tory range in general, between 4,300 and 6,300 feet above sea. But 70 per 
cent of the population is settled in valleys not exceeding 4,500 feet in 
elevation, and GO per cent in the basin of Great Salt Lake. In these lower 
valleys the climate is mild and agreeable. Its perpetual charm cannot be 
conveyed by meteorological statistics. The atmosphere is dry, elastic, 
transparent, and bracing; and the temperature, while ranging high in 
summer, and not altogether exempt from the fickleness characteristic of the 
climate of North America in general, compares favorably in respect of 
equability with that of the United States at large, and especially with that of 
Colorado and the Territories north and south of Utah. Its range upward is 
less than that of St. Louis, Philadelphia and New York, to say nothing of 
that of Arizona ; while in the other direction there is no comparison, either 
with the Eastern States intersected by the same isothermal, or with 
Colorado, Idaho and Montana. 

Meteorological Statistics .—Most meteorological reports give the annual 
and seasopal mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures, air pressure, 
and amount of precipitation. But while these are important they are not so 
significant to the general reader as the daily and monthly means and 
variations, and the percentage of humidity in the atmosphere ; saturation, 
that is, all the moisture the air will hold without precipitation, being 100. 
It is not always the countries or seasons of least rainfall that enjoy the 
driest atmospheres. For example, the percentage of humidity at Salt Lake 
City is 07 in winter and 45 in spring; yet the rainfall of spring is twice that 
of winter. What is of interest to know is whether the atmosphere is 
habitually dry or moist, and that is not always shown by the quantity of pre- 
cipitation. So the bold statement that the temperature of a place has a 
yearly range of 100® maybe misleading. One has not to experience that 
appalling fluctuation in a day, or a month. He has six months of gradual 
change in daily range between the 100*^ of July and the zero of January. 
What chiefly concerns us is the variation between day and night, and within 
each month, since an equable climate and cool nights, although one may at 
first sight seem to exclude the other, are necessary to both health and 
comfort. Great diurnal variation is attended by some disadvantages, but 
they may be, and they certainly are in Utah, far more than counter-balanced 
by the recuperating advantages of cool nights which they involve. With 
these remarks, intended to guide the reader as to what to look for, the 



10 



THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 



following nieteorolouiical report, furnished by tlie United States Signal 
oftlcfi at Salt Lake City, is submitted. Attention is particularly directed to 
the variations of temperature by months, which average 40 © for 48 months, 
and to the low percentage of humidity from April to October inclusive. 



METE GEOLOGICAL REPORT, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, 1S75-78. 





1875. 


1876. 


MONTHS. 


TEMPERATURE. 


HUMIDITY. 


TEMPERATURE. 


HUMIDITY. 




Mean. 


Max. 


Min. 


Rng. 


Per Ct. 


Inches. 


Mean. 


Max. 


Min. 


Rnir. 


Per Ct. 


Inrhec. 




O 


O 


O 


O 









O 


O 


O 




January 


2'.). 4 


51 


5 


46 


61.8 


3.05 


30.4 


48 


7 


41 


67.9 


1.23 


February 


33.7 


56 


17 


39 


52.9 


.79 


35.5 ' 57 


13 


44 


59.5 


1.52 


March 


35.2 


66 


15 


51 


50.1 


2.81 


33.6 


65 


18 


47 


50.9 


4.00 


April 


50.3 


79 


19 


60 


41.3 


1.50 


48.6 


70 


30 


40 


40.4 


2.09 


Mav 


(;o.i 

60.1 


85 
93 


38 
37 


47 
56 


37.5 

38.9 


2.91 
.90 


56.7 
65.9 


83 
90 


34 
43 


49 
47 


47.7 
32.7 


4.30 


June 


.09 


Julv 


74.7 
7«.2 


97 
101 


53 

48 


44 
53 


30.0 
23.1 


1.01 
.25 


7(i.9 
72.6 


97 
95 


52 
46 


45 
49 


30.2 
29.3 


.83 


August 


.92 


September. . . . 


G8.8 


93 


46 


47 


31.1 


1.22 


65.6 


90 


45 


45 


29.8 


.42 


October 


59.3 


79 


33 


46 


31.6 


1 .'Mi 


54.6 i 83 


30 


53 


47.3 


3.27 


November . . . . 


42.0 


68 


28 


40 


60.4 


5.81 


40.5 i 62 


23 


39 


53.6 


.87 


December . . . . 


35.5 


55 

101 


9 
5 


46 


70.0 


2.03 26.6 ' 45 


13 


32 


89.2 


1.80 


For the Year, 


51.8 


48 


44.0 


23.64 


50.6 


• 97 


7 


44 


48.2 


21.34 





1877. 


1878. 




MONTHS. 


TEMPERATURE. 


HUMIDITY. 


TEMPERATURE. 


HUMIDITY. 




Mean. 


Max. 


Min.| Rng. 


Per Ct. 


Inches. 


Mean. 


Max. 


Mi„. 


Rn;.'. 


Per ct. 


luehes. 




O 


O 


O 


o 






O 


O 


o 


O 






January 


27.9 


50 


3 


47 


74.9 


.87 


30.0 


52 


- 5 


47 


64.8 


1.07 


February 


33.7 


55 


15 


40 


75.3 


.38 


32.8 


60 


20 


40 


66.2 


3.49 


March 


48.0 


73 


28 


45 


52.9 


2.93 46.6 


73 


27 


46 


52.6 


2.54 


April 


48.6 


70 


30 


40 


48.6 


2.14 


49.8 


73 


30 


43 


43.4 


2 63 


May 


56.7 
65.9 
78.2 
76.3 


83 


34 


49 
47 


42.1 
29.7 


3.49 

.80 
.02 

.28 


56.2 
69.4 
77.7 

78.5 


83 
93 
96 
97 


34 
45 
52 
60 


49 
48 
44 
37 


39.0 
30.7 
2(!.2 
33.7 


2.50 


June 


90 43 


.35 


July 


98 
96 


50 
53 


48 ; 24.1 
43 25.1 


1.08 


August 


.81 


September. . . . 


65.0 


90 


42 


48 31.5 


.90 


60.5 


92 


38 


54 


, 37.0 


3.15 


October 


51.0 


80 j 25 


55 41.0 


2.41 


48.5 


78 


22 


56 


|44.5 


1.39 


November 


40.1 


60 15 


45 55.4 


1.02 


42.7 


68 


22 


46 


1 54.6 


.63 


December . . 


31.7 


51 8 


43 68.1 


1.11 


29.7 


56 


,s 


48 


59.1 


.11 


For the Year, 


51.9 


98 1 3 


46 1 47.4 


16.35 


51.9 1 97 


5 46 


i 45.9 


19.75 



The following table shows the annual and mean temperatures; tlie max- 
iraism, minimum, and range of the same; tlie annual and seasonal rainfall; 
the percentage of moisture, and number of days on which there was precip- 
itation; all being the mean of the four years, or four seasons, 1875-78: 



CLIMATE, METEOROLOGICAL STATISTICS, ETC. 11 

Temperature, Eainfall, Moisture. — 



SEASONS. 


TEMPERATURE. 


PRECIPITATION. 


Mean. 


Max. 


Min. 


Range. 


Per Ct. 


Inches. Days 


Annual 


o 
51.8 
31.4 
47.4 
73.8 
53.2 


o 
98.0 
57.0 
84.7 
98.2 
91.2 


o 

4.0 

4.5 

22.0 

41.7 

22.0 


o 
94.0 
52.5 
62.7 
56.5 
69.2 


46.4 
67.4 
45.4 
29.5 
43.2 


20.27 
4.37 
8.46 
1.83 
5.61 


92 


Winter 


28 


Spi'ing 


30 


Summer 


12 


Fall 


22 











July and August are the warmest, January and December the coldest 
months . The range per month differs but little between the warm and cold 
months. The mean temperature of April is about two degrees below, and 
that of October two degrees above the yearly mean, while the fall mean is 
nearly the same as that of the year. The annual mean is three degrees 
higher than that of Denver. The difference between the summer and winter 
mean is 42 ® ; at Denver it is 41 o . The maximum at Salt Lake City and 
Denver is about the same, except in winter, when it is 8 o the higher at Den- 
ver. The minimum for summer is nearly the same at the two places ; but for 
the year it is 24 ^ lower at Denver, for winter 22 ° lower, for spring and fall 
each 16 ° lower. The winter range at Denver exceeds that of Salt Lake City 
by 31 ■=> , the spring range by 19 o , the summer range is about the same, the 
fall range by 20 "=" . The annual range at Salt Lake City is 94 => ; at Denver it 
is 117®. 

Annual and Seasonal Means.— The annual mean of Salt Lake City places 
it very near the isothermal line of 50=" , which crosses nearly 15<=' of latitude 
on each continent, ovring to the influences of oceans, winds and elevations, 
starting on Puget's Sound and passing near or through Salt Lake City, Santa 
Fe, Denver, Burlington, Pittsburgh, New Haven, Dublin, Brussels, Vienna 
and Pekin. The summer and winter means describe the same undulations 
in traversing the continents, and they are more indicative of the climate in 
its relations to animal and vegetable life than the annual mean. The mean 
annual temperatures of New York and Liverpool are the same, yet through- 
out England the heat of summer is insufficient to ripen Indian corn, while 
the ivy, which grows luxuriantly in England, can scarcely survive the severe 
winters of New York. In both the East and the West Indias the mean tem- 
perature of the hottest mouth in the year differs very little (at Singapore 
3)2 '-' ) from that of the coldest. At Quebec, on the other hand, the difference 
is 60 <^ , and at some places in Siberia 100 '^. At Salt Lake City it is 47'='. 
Among the highest observed temperatures are 121 © at Fort Miller, California, 
and 132 o in India; while the thermometer has been known to fall to 76 '^ be- 
low zero in Siberia, and to 40^ below in some parts of the United States.* 
At places in tlie East and West Indies, the entire annual range of the ther- 
mometer is 14 c ; at Montreal it is 140 o ; at New York, 114 ° ; at St. Louis, 
133 o ; at Chicago, 132 => ; at Denver, 126 o ; at Salt Lake City, 94 o . 

* Loomis. 



12 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

A summer mean of 74 ® may be thought high, but to the extremes of 
summer heat in nearly all parts of the United States the lower valleys of 
Utah offer no exception. The higher valleys and mountains are always at 
hand, however, and Great Salt Lake exercises a mollifying oceanic influence 
on the extremes of temperature. " Some travelers have imagined that on 
its shores is to be found the most unique and wonderful climate on the face 
of the globe, combining, as it docs, the light pure air of the neighboring 
snow-capped mountains with that of the briny lake itself; and it is fancied 
by many that at certain points one may inhale an atmosphere salty and 
marine, like that of the shores of the Atlantic, happily combined with a cool, 
fresh mountain air, like the breath of the Alps themselves. Owing to the 
absence of marine vegetation about the shores, however, there are none of 
the pleasant odors of the seashore."* At all events, the dry and absorbent 
character of the atmosphere here relieves the oppression felt in humid 
climates at high tempei'atures. 

Hamiditij, Rainfall. — The same may be said with reference to extremes of 
cold, although the average humidity in winter is more than twice as great as 
in summer. For the year it is 4G ; at Denver it is 40 ; at Philadelphia, 73. 
For spring, summer and fall, it is about 40, while for summer it is 30. The 
rainfall averages 20 inches a year, 41 per cent, of which is in the spring, 9 in 
the summer, 28 in the fall, and 22 in the winter. In latitude 40 ® there 
should be, on general principles, 30 inches in a year. Fort Laramie, Sacra- 
mento and Santa Fe have about the same as Salt Lake City; Denver, 20 per 
cent less ; while over the entire area of the United States east of the 100th 
Meridian west from Greenwich, the average annual rainfall is 40 inches,! CO 
per cent, of which is at once thrown off in tbe river drainage. Nothing in 
the meteorological register of the last four years indicates that the climate 
of Utah is growing moister; but Rush Lake rolls its blue waves over what 
was a meadow 20 years ago, and Great Salt Lake has at least ten feet of 
brine where wagons were driven to an fro in 1863. It has not gained any in 
contents in the last decade, however, and it would be nowise surprising were 
it to recede again to its old level. If the rainfall has increased because of 
the greater area of land cultivated aud quantity of water diffused by irrigation 
as well as of the currents tapped in opening mines, the lake may be expected 
to retain its present level. Increased humidity has followed the settle- 
ment and cultivation of the Mississippi Valley prairies, and it is not unlike- 
ly that it is doing so in Utah, although there is not sufficient data as yet 
upon which to assert it. A peculiarity of our climate is the preponderance 
of rainfall in the spring, when it is most needed. Could a part of the mois- 
ture that is precipitated in winter be transferred to the summer, there would 
be no necessity for irrigation. The days on which there is precipitation 
average one in four, but not half of them are really stormy days. There is 
hardly ever a cloud in the skies of Utah through which the sun is not 
looking. 

Diurnal Variation Eestimp. — Following is an abstract of the monthly 
mean of diurnal variations of temperature at Fort Douglas, near or about 
600 feet above Salt Lake City, for one year : 

* Surgeon E. P. VoUuni, U. S. A. f Blodget. 



CI.IMATE, METEOROLOGICAL STATISTICS, ETC. 
Diurnal Variation of Temperature at Fort Douglas. — 



13: 



January. . . 
February. . 
March . . . . 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August . . 
September 
October . . 
November . 
December . 



28 
23 
33 
38 
s5 
61 
68 
65 
56 
41 
38 
22 



35 
34 
47 
50 
55 
77 
85 
80 
74 
56 
53 
51 



29 
24 
39 
41 
47 
65 
73 
69 
62 
45 
41 
24 



7 
11 
14 
12 
10 
16 
17 
15 
18 
15 
15 

9 



33.60 
31.30 
32.33 
36.42 

28.74 
29.28 
23.86 
25.38- 
20.00 
21.97 
38.68 
40.50 



The mean temperature of June to September inclusive at 2 p. m. was 79 '^ ; 
at 9 p. M., 57"^ ; difference, 22° ; mean percentage of sick for these months, 
24.63. For the other eight months the mean at 2 p. m. was 47=* ; at 9 p. m. 
36° ; difference, 11° ; mean percentage of sick for these months, 32.93. 
The months of greatest mean diurnal variation seem to be the healthiest 
months. They are so, generally, in Utah, unless from some local cause, as 
bad water, or drainage, or exposure. Attention is called to the mean tem- 
perature of the four warmest months at 9 o'clock in the evening, namely 
57 <^ . Those who swelter through night after night elsewhere with the 
thermometer between 80"^ and 90° , will see the significance of this. 

The mean air-pressure at Salt Lake City is 25.63 inches; water boils at 
204.3° . The prevailing winds are from the north-northwest, and the most 
windy months are March, July, August, and September. The mean velocity 
of the winds during the entire year is 5% miles an hour. On the ocean it is 
18; at Liverpool it is 13; at Toronto, 9; at Philadelphia, 11. The climate of 
Utah on the whole is not unlike that of northwestern Texas and New Mexi- 
co, and is agreeable except for a month or so in winter, and then the tem- 
perature seldom falls to zero or snow to a greater depth than a foot ; and it 
soon melts away although it sometimes affords a few days' sleighing. The 
spring opens about the middle of March, the atmosphere becomes as clear 
as a diamond, deciduous trees burst at once into bloom and then into leaf, 
while the bright green of the valleys follows the retiring snow line steadily 
up the mountain slopes. The summer is not unpleasant in its onset, ac- 
companied as it is by refreshing breezes and full streams from the higher 
melting snow banks. Springs of sweet water, fed largely from the surface, 
bubble forth everywhere. But as the season advances the drouth increases, 
every stirring air, near or far, raises a cloud of alkaline dust until the 
atmosphere is full of it. Sometimes a shower precipitates it, but there are 
more dry than wet storms. The springs fail or become impregnated with 
mineral salts, and the streams run low or dry up. Vegetation dies in the 
fierce and prolonged heat and drouth if not artificially watered. Still, from 
the rapid radiation of the earth's heat, the nights are always agreeably cool, 
and the heat itself seems to have but slight debilitating quality. The 
presence or absence of the sun has a marked effect on the temperature from 



14 



THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 



the great transparency of the air. Let his rays be cut off, even in July, and 
a fire is pleasant; and if they have free passa;jce the fires are allowed to go 
out, even in January. October usliors in a different state of things. The 
atinospliore clears up airain as in spring, and the landscape softens with the 
rich browns, russets, and scarlets of the dying vegetation, which reaches up 
the niounlain sides to their summits in places; but on them the gorgeous 
picture is soon overlaid by the first snows of api)roaching winter. The fall 
is a delightful season and is generally drawn out nearly to the end of the 
year. 

The following meteorological report, from Fort Douglas, near, and 500 
feet above Salt Lake City, extending over IG years, was procured too late 
for use in the writing of this chapter. Surgeon Clements, U. S. A., who 
furnishes it, says, "I llnd that the records on these points are remarkably 
complete, and I judge that the figures given in the enclosed paper may be 
relied upon. 

METEOBOLOGICAL BEPOIiT, FORT DOUGLAS, SALT LAKE CITY. 





TKMPKR.VTURE. 


precp'n 




Mean. 


Ma.x. 


Mill. 


Range. 


Inches. 


1803 


52.93 
52.22 
50. li 
51.87 
52.71 
50.06 
53.61 
51.00 
53.0!) 
50.42 
49.20 
50.18 
51.26 
50.64 
51.00 
51.29 


103 
97 

100 
94 
95 
96 
97 
90 

104 
91 
98 
97 
95 
99 
98 
93 


7 
-4 

9 

5 
7 
4 
8 

-3 
8 
9 
8 
5 
8 


90 
101 
94 
85 
95 
91 
90 
92 
90 
91 
99 
89 
8G 
91 
93 
85 


7.47 


1864 

1865 


14.92 
15.51 


1866 


22.29 


1867 


20.14 


1868 

lyOO 


17.25 
22.32 


1870 

1871 ... 


20.96 
23.12 


1872 


18.12 


1873 


17.37 


1874 


19.55 


1875 


21.07 


1876 


18.31 


1877 

1878 


14.52 

17.86 


Mean for IG yeai's 


51.43 


97 


6 


92 


18.58 



SANlTAIiY ADVjiNTAGES. 

Camping Out, Roughing it. — In considering the sanitary effects of a sojourn 
or permanent residence in Utah, the mode of life adopted, as well as the 
climatic and other conditions peculiar to the country, must be taken cog- 
nizance of. In the case of the tourist or invalid, seeking pleasure or health, 
the drudgery of business is temporarily exchanged for the novelties, exercise, 
exposure, and rough fare of "tramping" iu the mountains. People adopting 
the country as their permanent home will also enter upon new conditions, 
changing in a great degree their former habits. Very many of the denizens 
of Utah may be said to work, eat and sleep almost in the open air, amid rude 
surroundings and in quite primitive style ; cooking their simple food over 



CI-IM ATE, METEOROLOGICAL STATISTICS, ETC. 15 

camp flres, or in open fire places in comparatively open buildings. Much of 
the healthful influence popularly attributed to the climate is doubtless due 
to this cause, and it is to those who place themselves in similar circum- 
stances as far as possible that improved health comes. "During our pro- 
tracted absence of 14 months," says Fremont, at the close of his second 
Rocky Mountain expedition, "in the course of which we had necessarily 
been exposed to great varieties of climate and of weather, no one case of 
sickness had ever occurred among us."' *Captain Stansbury tells the same 
story at the end of his three months' survey of Great Salt Lake, begun very 
early in the spring. He and his men were subjected to constant hardships 
and exposure. Nearly every day they were in the cold water dragging their 
boat througli shallows and packing their luggage. They were often caught, 
night and day, in furious storms, almost unsheltered, while there food and 
drinking water were neither choice nor abundant. Still, not a single case of 
illness occurred among them. A California physician f says, "tiiat arsenic, 
phosphorus, strychnia, and all the nerve tonics combined, will not half so 
quickly renovate a broken down nerve apparatus, as camping out in the 
mountains; and that it is by its effect primarily on the nervous system that 
all other organic processes are improved, the psychological among the 
rest." 

Climate and Other Advantages. — Utah is very happily adapted to this out-of- 
door tramping and camping in the season for it by reason of its extremely 
dry air and slight rainfall — about three-fourths of au inch per month. There 
may be somewhat more moisture and precipitation in the higher valleys and 
mountains, perhaps, although at Fort Bridger, altitude 7000 feet, the 
average humidity from June to September inclusive is but 54 per cent, and 
the rainfall but. 09 of an inch per month, as ascertained by observations 
extending through 15 years. To be healthful and to possess sanitary advan- 
tages a climate should be dry, bracing, and equable not only ; pure water 
and wholesome food must be always readily obtainable. In all these respects 
Utah may justly claim pre-eminence. Remarkably dry and bracing and 
comparatively equable the atmosphere and temperature of Utah are, beyond 
all question, as has been shown; and in all the valleys of the mountains pure 
water is as abundant as fresh dry air. Usually the streams open into each 
other toward their sources, and they present a succession of valleys between 
their gorges all of which are inhabited, and afford the fresh meats, fruits, 
vegetables, eggs, milk, butter, etc., which are the most important articles of 
diet for well or sick persons ; and immediately from the range, the trees, the 
ground,^ or the dairy, ensuring freshness; while the streams are full of 
trout, the uncultivated fields and terraces abound in game birds, and the 
lakes at certain seasons in aquatic fowl. Where beside, which is not un- 
common in Utah, the odor of pine trees can be inhaled, there is an assem- 
blage of favorable climatic conditions hard to improve. 

Effect on Particular Diseases. — Considering now the effect of these climatic 
advantages in particular diseases, one cannot speak with full assurance, but 
there is substantial agreement among people and physicians on the follow- 

* Stansbury's Exploration and Survey, etc., Washington, 18-53. 
t James Blake, M. D., F. R. C. S. 



16 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

ing points, namely: Hi,i?li altitndos and areas of low barometric pressure 
quicken the respiration ami circulation, and are therefore unfavorable in 
cases of pulmonary disease that are far advanced, and also in heart disease 
and that form of chronic bronchitis associatetl with it. The other forms of 
chronic bronchitis, clironic pneumonia, and phthisis, are the diseases, par 
excellence, upon which such localities exercise a favorable influence.* Con- 
sumption does not oriajinate here, and where the monthly fluctuation of the 
thermometer does tfot exceed 50 ° , and the mean monthly temperature is at, 
or, within limits, above 50^ , and the humidity is under 50 per cent., a resi- 
dence is benetlcial to consumptives if commenced early enough. f The best 
treatment known for consumption is a year of steady daily horse-back riding 
in a mountainous country, diet of corn bread and bacon, witli a moderate 
quantity of whisky. J Tiie beneficial influence of the climate on asthma is 
decided. It cannot exist here, except in a relieved and modified condition. 
Bronchitis appears in a mild form during the wet and thawing periods of 
spring and fall, but it always yields to treatment. Rheumatic fevers are 
scattered over the months without reference to season ; but very few cases 
become chronic. The intermittents are imported, and the tendency in them 
is to longer intervals and ultimate recovery. A remittent, called " Mountain 
fever," is indigenous. It yields readily to simple treatment if attended to 
in time, but if not, develops into a modifled typhoid, which is liable to prove 
fatal. Experience in the miners' liospitals at Salt Lake City shows that the 
climatic conditions are very favorable to recovery from severe injuries. The 
summer heat is great, but not debilitating, and the dry pure air and cool, in- 
vigorating nights enable patients to sustain the shock of surgical operations 
that could not often be safely attempted in more humid climates. Pieniia, 
or blood poison, the frequent accompaniment of severe injuries, and of 
surgery, is of extremely rare occurrence.il 

For a fact, the people of Utah are as robust and long-lived as any in the 
world. The mortality is chiefly among small children, and its principal cause 
is want of care and prompt medical attendance. Hardly any form of disease 
originates or proceeds to the chronic stage in the Territory ; while upon 
many such a simple residence here is more beneflcial than all the drugs that 
are known. One has a choice of altitude ranging from 4,300 to 7,000 feet 
above sea, with access to mineral springs, hot and cold, of decidedly eftica- 
cious qualities in the cure of many ills, as experience has amply shown; and 
for the whole of Salt Lake Basin the softening and other healthful influences 
of at least 3,000 square miles of salt water, giving off a saline air and 
affording the benefits of ocean bathing without its discomforts and dangers. 

• Surgeon P. Moffatt, U. S. A. i Surgeon K. P. Volliun, U. S. A. 

t Surgeon Charles Smart, U. S. A. || Surgeon J. F. Hamilton, Salt Lake City. 



AGRICULTURE, FRUIT, PASTURAGE. 17 



CHAPTER III. 

AGRICULTURE, FRUIT, PASTURAC^E. 

There were surveyed of public lands in Utah, down to June 30, 1878, 
8,178,819.97 acres, arable, timbered, coal and mineral land. It is impossible 
to tell, from any accessible data, what proportion of it is arable land, 
probably not more than one-fourth, or 2,Q00,000 acres. In general, all of 
that is which can be artificially watered. 

Irrigation. — Lands not subject to water are being more and more brought 
under cultivation, and in many places certain crops can be and are raised on 
such lands with no more than ordinary chances of failure elsewhere. But 
irrigation cannot safely be dispensed with as a rule. It is usually done by 
■colonies or communities uniting to divert part or the whole of a stream from 
its natural channel on to the adjoining land, each member of the association 
then having his proportional right to the use of the water. "While it involves 
outlay or labor on the start, it is not without its advantages. In other 
regions excess of rainfall often retards the putting in of crops in the spring, 
and damages hay and grain in the harvest season, by lodging, causing mildew, 
rust or sprouting, and with hay, bleaching out its natural juices. Again, 
want of the ordinary rainfall often involves a widespread failure of all crops, 
causing extreme fluctuations in prices and inducing famines. In rainless 
countries the ill effects of these excesses of nature are avoided. The farmer 
can control seed time and harvest, and it is a striking fact that Egypt, 
Mexico and Peru, all rainless, were the singular and sole birthplaces of civ- 
ilization. Further, the soil is constantly enriched by materials, salts and 
earths, held in solution by the water, if it is kept on the land till absorbed. 
But few of the standard crops of Utah ever require more than two or three 
waterings to perfect them, some of them, especially fall wheat, seldom need- 
ing more than one. Most of the smaller streams in Utah that could easily be 
diverted from their natural channels, have been already utilized; but their 
full capacities as irrigating supplies, which can only be exhausted by means of 
dams, reservoirs, and canals of considerable importance, have not as yet 
been called into requisition. 

It appears from statistics, collected and published by order of the Legis- 
lative Assembly for 1875, that of the 223,30) acres of land then under culti- 
vation in the Territory, 77,525 acres required no irrigation; 35,706 acres one 
or two waterings ; 87,774 acres three or four; and 21,761 acres four to ten. 
On the same authority about 10,000 acres were reclaimed that year; and 
there were in use 2,095 miles of main, and 4,888 miles of minor, irrigating 
ditches. Irrigation by means of artesian wells has not yet been seriously 
attempted in Utah, probably because the necessity has not been felt, but the 
few experiments in that line have been exceedingly encouraging, and there 



18 THE RESOURCES CF UTAH. 

is little doubt that it will be largely resorted to in the future. The Union 
Pacific Railroatl Company bored several artesian wells alonij; their road at 
Crestou, Separation, and other stations, gettinu; from (500 to 2,000 gallons 
per hour at depths ranging between 325 and 1,200 feet. The few bored in 
Utah obtained flowing water at a depth of less than 100 feet, similar in qual- 
ity to the surface water of the same locality. The area of land not subject 
to artificial watering but which is nevertheless cropped to more or less ad- 
vantage is every year increasing. The roots of plants will go down for 
moisture until they find it if the ground is in proper condition. The Bel- 
gians, who are the best farmers in the world, say it is advantageous to stir 
the ground three feet in depth. Deep and thorough stirring enables the soil 
to receive more of the winter rains not only, but to better resist the rapid 
evaporation of suminer. With frequent fallowing it would make much land 
(now considered almost valueless under the dry skies of the high interior) 
produce good crops of grain, clover, the mulberry, grapes, and other pro- 
ducts, without irrigation. 

Timber. — Utah holds an intermediate position, with respect to its supply 
of timber, between the Atlantic and Prairie States. Its arable lands are not 
interspersed with forests, nor yet is it without an adequate supply of timber 
within its own limits for building, fencing, mining, and fuel. The valleys or 
plains are destitute of forest growth, and in early times willow brush w'as 
resorted to for fencing, adobe bricks for building, and sage brush for fuel. 
But the mountains are generally more or less wooded, almost wholly with 
evergreens, however. The best trees furnish lumber not technically clear, 
but the knots are held so fast that they are no real detriment, and the 
lumber is practically clear. The red pine and black balsam indigenous to 
the mountains make a fence post or railroad tie that will last ten years. 
The white pine is not so good. More than half of the forest growth of the 
Wasatch is of the white or inferior variety. On the Oquirrh the trees are 
chiefl}' red pine. Scrub cedar and pinon pine are quite common in the south 
and west. They are of little value for anything but posts, ties and fuel. 
In 1875 there were perhaps 100 saw-mills in existence if not in operation in 
the Territory, and while the people are not enabled bylaw to acquire title to 
timbered lands, nor authorized to appropriate the timber on other than 
mineral lands, nor that save for domestic uses, tlie fact remains that they do 
so approi)riate it, always have, and always will, as it is reasonable and right 
that they should. Ordinary rough building and fencing lumber ranges ia 
price from $20 to $25 a thousand. Flooring and finishing lumber is im- 
ported, and costs about #45 a thousand. Wood is obtained from the canons 
for fuel, and soft coal of good (|uality can be had for #8 to #12 a ton in all 
Northern Utah. When the coal deposits of the Territory shall have been 
developed and made accessible by railroads, the price should be less by one- 
half, for there is an abundant supply and it is widely distributed. 

Prodmtx, Yield. — All of the products of the same latitude, east or west, 
on or about the level of tide water, with the exception of Indian corn, (for 
which the nights are too cool,) are grown in Utah with great success, and 
the soil and climate seem peculiarly adapted to the growth of wheat and 



AGRICULTURE, FRUIT, PASTURAGE. If) 

fruit. Following are statistics of the area and yield of various crops for the 
year 1875, on the authority before cited: 

Articles. Acres. Total Yield. Yiuld per acre. 

Wheat 72,0i'0 1,418,783 bushels. 20 bu.shels. 

Barley 13,847 359,527 " 25 " 

Oats 1".»,70(1 581,840 " 30 " 

Rye 447 8,!»87 " 20 

Corn ir.,452 317,253 '< 20 

Buc'.vvvheat 11 243 " 22 " 

Peas 1,701 30,801 " 18 " 

Beans 127 3,170 " 25 

Potatoes 10,300 l,30(i,it57 " 130 

Other Roots 1,433 278, .12 «< 125 " 

Seeds 125 49,-501 lbs. 390 lbs. 

Broom Corn 200 713 tons. 3% tons. 

Sugar Cane 1,432 103,104 gals. 72' gals. 

Meadow 81,788 112,.529 tons. 1)^ tons. 

Lucerne 3,587 13,189 tons. 3^^ tons. 

Cotton 113 31,075 lbs 275 lbs. 

Flax 5 1,250 lbs. 250 lbs 

Total a -res, 223,300. Total value of products, about .$7,500,000. 

Of the wheat crop of 1873, 100,000 bushels were exported. There was no 
surplus for export in 1874-75. Of the crops of 1870-77 50,000 to 60,000 
bushels were exported. There was a surplus of about 270,000 bushels 
raised in 1878, one-half of which was shipped to England via San Francisco; 
the rest remains in stock. Taking the export of wheat, and allowing six 
bushels per capita for consumption and seed, it would seem that the crop of 
1875 was over-stated above. On the other hand it is fed to stock in some 
places, and considerable flour is sold in the mines of Nevada adjoining 
Utah and along the overland railroads, which does not appear in the export 
of wheat. A few years ago the Territory imported flour from California, 
which bore twice as high a price as the Utah flour, but our flouring mills 
have been improved in recent years until they make as good flour as is made 
anywhere. There are about 50 mills in the Territory, with an aggregate 
capacity on full time of 2,000 sacks a day, but they do not run half the 
'time, take them together. Probably the acreage in wheat has not increased 
much since 1875, nor the hay crop. But dry farming has, and the growth of 
lucerne has doubled. The crops are sometimes damaged by the grass- 
hoppers, but taking the Territory as a whole and one year with another, it 
doesn't amount to mucli. 

Improved lands are held at from $25 to flOO an acre, according to loca- 
tion. They are almost all adjacent to either towns or mines, or both. There 
are in different localities comparatively large bodies of Government lands 
unoccupied, which can be entered at the Salt Lake Land Office under the 
United States land laws, the same as in other States and Territories, or 
bought of the Pacific Railroad companies at low rates, and on easy time ; 
although, as a general thing, agricultural settlement and improvement in 
Utah will be undertaken to better advantage by colonies than by individuals. 
The construction of the main irrigating canals may usually be accomplished 
by plow and scraper, each adjoining land-owner contributing his quota of 
the expense, and having a perpetual right to the Avater at the additional cost 



20 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

for repairs. Under the desert land law, each person joininij in such an enter- 
prise is entitled to pre-empt 040 acres of land, paying one-tifth down and 
the rest in three years, on condition that the enterprise be consummated 
within tliat time. 

FliUIT. 

Tiic Salt Lake Basin throughout is unsurpassed in the adaptation of its 
soil and climate to the growth of all kinds of fruit cora;n'jn to the latitude; 
in the south, on the waters of the Rio Colorado, grape culture is followed 
with great success, and wine-miking is there a growing industry; but in the 
higher mountain vallej's, as well as in Cache and San I'ete, the seasons are 
too short, and not so much attention has been devoted to it. The following 
table shows the area, the product, and the yield per acre, of fruits, for the 
year 1875, as returned and published by order of the Legislature : 

Fniit. Acres. Total Yield. Yield per Acre. 

Apples 3,!'35 358,277 bushels. !»0 bushels. 

Pears 128 10,560 " 75 " 

Peaches 2, 087 33 i,535 " 120 " 

Plums 25!) 43,585 " 1(;5 " 

Apricots :M5 44,lti() " U:, " 

Cherries i.2 4,(;(;i " 75 " 

Grapes 541 3,40'J,200 lbs. G,2G0 lbs. 

Total Acres, 7,i)20. Value, $1,028, GIG. 

No finer, thriftier trees, no fairer, better flavored fruit is produced any- 
where. The trees ai'e extremely bounteous bearers, having to be propped up 
to enable them to sustain the weight of their enormous burdens. There is 
great room for improvement in the introduction of new varieties, too many 
of the trees, especially apples and peaches, being seedlings ; and also in care, 
from a lack of which apples in many localities are growing yearly more 
infected by different kinds of worms. The fruit market in Salt Lake City is 
almost perpetually deriving its supply from California, when native fruits 
and berries are not in season. Tliis applies, too, to many kinds of vegetables, 
cauliflower, lettuce, and asparagus. The season for most fruits, berries, and 
vegetables begins in California a month or six weeks in advance of the same 
in Utah, and proportionally lengthens it. The extreme southern part of the 
Territory is adapted to the production of many semi-tropical and some 
tropical fruits, without doubt, but not much has been done in that line as 
yet. Cotton is grown in a small way, for use in the miking of cloth. Figs 
and almonds have also been tried a little. The climate is not greatly different 
from that of southern California, where oranges and many tropical fruits do 
as well as anywhere in the world. 

PASTUEAGE, STOCK RAISLVa. 

One great resource of Utah, and one easily discounted, so to speak, is 
t'.i<i very extensive stock range. There is in such a country necessarily a 
great deal of laud on the foot-hill slopes and river terraces which cannot be 
artificially watered, and yet is not cut off from water. The native grasses 
are probably not as good as the buffalo and gramma grasse:^ of the plains 
east of the Rocky Mountains, but the bunch grass, which seems to be in- 



AGRICULTUKF, FRUIT, PASTURAGE. 21 

di^enous to the broken and elevated region between the Sierra Madre and 
the Sierra Xevada, is only second to them in excellence. Throughout this 
interior basin millions of acres are not absolute desert, only because of the 
existence of this grass. It grows in bunches in apparently the most barren 
places. Early in the season it cures, standing, retaining all its nutriment, 
and being hard to cover with snow beyond the reach of stock. Its seed is 
pyriform, and has remarkable fattening properties. In the high, dry, bracing 
altitudes of the interior, cattle grow and fatten on much less than on the sea 
level, and the same degree of either heat or cold, as marked by the thermom- 
eter, appears to affect them less. The grazing lands of Utah are almost 
unlimited; including the second tables of the river courses, the slopes of the 
foot-hills and lesser ranges not too far from water; the shores of tlxe sinks 
and lakes, and the coves and valleys of the mountains. In the Salt Lake 
Basin, generally, stock winter without fodder; further south, they not only 
subsist, but thrive on the range the year I'ound. In Cache, Bear Lake, and 
other valleys more elevated, they require more food and shelter; and the 
stock-grower will do well to pi'epare for occasional cold and snowy spells in 
all the northern parts of the Territory. There is ample hay ground for this. 
Under ordinary circumstances, a five-year-old steer, worth $25, can be turned 
out at a cost of $5. The statistics before referred to returned of stock in 
Utah in 1875: 

Stallions 108 

Mares 1,349 

Mules 4,727 

All others, not horned 39,022 

Thoroughbred horned stock 510 

Graded " " 3,511 

Another " " 103,447 

Thorouirhbred sheep 15,620 

All other sheep 287,608 

Goats 1,578 

Graded swine 1 ,397 

Common swine 25,143 

Total value, including poultry and bees, placed at about $6,500,000. 

The number of blooded and graded animals has probably increased 200 
per cent since 1875; and that of sheep 100 per cent, while the strain of 
blood in all sheep has been so improved that double the wool is sheared from 
the same number. Considerable stock is kept in adjoining Territories by 
residents of Utah. It is estimated by stock growers and drivers that the 
Territory turns out yearly 40,000 head of stock from one to five years old, 
averaging in value $15 a head; a, total of $600,000. 

SHEEP AND WOOL GEO WING. 
The wool clip of 1875 was returned at 885,000 pounds, but it has quite 
doubled since. Mr. James Dunn, of the Provo AVoolen Mills, estimates the 
clip of 1877 at 1,200,000 to 1,300,000 pounds; for 1878, at 1,600,000 to 1,700,000 
pounds. Other large growers and dealers concur in this estimate. It is ex- 
pected that the clip of 1879 will be nearly 2,000,000 pounds. Of the clip of 
1878, about 1,250,000 pounds was exported, and the remainder, say 400,000 
pounds, was used by the Utah mills. Fleeces average abcut four pounds for 



22 TIIK RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

t'wcs, six for wi'lliiTs: p:irt of the wool ranges with the best California 
wools, as to (|uality, while part of it is inferior. Utah and Montana wools 
are consiilcroil better than the wools of the other Territories. Most of the 
Utah .sheep came from Now Mexioo down to 1870. Since then ewes have 
l)ocn brouglit in from California, generally flne-wooled Spanish Merinos, but 
little mixed; tlne-wooled bncks from Ohio, and long-wooled from Canada. 
The same strain of blood in sheep does not produce (luite so long a wool as 
in the East. It is so dry and dusty, the grease seems to absorb the alkali 
and mineral dust, which makes it harsher and more brittle. But since the 
large infusion of Merino blood, which has taken place in late years, there 
has been a marked improvement in the quality of Utah wool, in respect of 
lengtii, softness, and flneness of flbre. It realizes to the grower, here, crude, 
about llfteen to twenty cents a pound, according to the range of the world's 
market. 

Mr. Daniel Davidson, who lias imported $30,000 worth of bncks within a 
fevT years, has a flock of 1(!,000 sheep, from which he sheared '.lo.OOO pound.s 
of wool in 1878. Among other large owners are the Provo Manufacturing 
Company, with 13,000; a Mr Mclutyre, with 9,000. Mr. Davidson thinks 
llierc are 350,000 sheep in the Territory. Castle Valley, near the corner post 
of Wasatch, San Pete and Utah counties, is a great sheep range, several 
large flocks being kept there. Tliey are worth about $2.25 a head as they 
run, do not re(iuire feeding in winter, and if properly attended to, under 
ordinary circumstances, will yield a profit of 40 per cent a year on tlie in- 
vestment. They are beginning to be bought up to be driven away. A flock 
of 5,000, costing from $2 to $2.50 each, including lambs, was picked up and 
taken to Montana last spring. By the time they got there the lambs were 
worth as much as the .sheep, reducing the price in reality to about $1.50. A 
more inviting field for capital and enterprise than the growing of stock, sheep 
and wool, in Utah, does not exist anywhere. 



MINES AND MIxMNC;, MILLING AND SMELTING. 23 



CHAPTER IV. 

MINES AND MINING, MILLING AND SMELTING. 

Mines were known to exist in Utah, and some attempts were made to 
open and work them during the Ave years next preceding the completion of 
the Pacific Railroad, but the conditions were not favorable and little was ac- 
complished. On the consummation of that enterprise, however, attention 
was re-called to them, and within 18 months thereafter the streets of Salt 
Lake City were thronged with wagons and teams bringing ore from almost 
every point of the compass, and from camps 20 to 200 miles distant. Rude 
mining camps gradually growing into towns, mills, sampling works, and 
smelters, began to appear as if by magic. 

Product. — From the end of 1870 to the end of 1878, as appears from the 
books of tlie Utah Central Railroad Company, there were shipped from Salt 
Lake City 76,912 tons of ore, 109,276 tons of argentiferous lead bullion, and 
8,197 tons of lead, worth, in the aggregate, quite $40,000,000. For the last 
three years, the value of Utah's mineral out-turn, ascertained with great 
care and accuracy by J. E. Dooly, Agent for Wells, Fargo & Co., at Salt Lake 
City, was $18, 558, 805. -18. Most of the ores so far worked have been argen- 
tiferous galena, and the present depression in the price of lead decreases the 
profits realized from that kind of ores. But lead represents only 15,379,446 
of the product of the last three years, against $13,137,033 of the precious 
metals ; and of last year, but $81 1,068 against $5,224,580, or less than 16 per 
cent. And, further, as the profit on lead has decreased, mines producing 
gold and silver ores proper have been discovered, or have risen into prom- 
inence. Such are the Ontario, which has paid 42 consecutive dividends of 
$50,000 each; the mines of Silver Reef, which, first discovered two years 
ago, are now producing fine bullion at the rate of $100,000 per month; and 
the gold mines in Bingham Canon, the ores of which, though of comparatively 
low grade, are very cheaply mined and milled, and occur, so far as work has 
shown, in veins or deposits of extraordinary size and strength. 

Area. — There is not a county in the Territory where mines have not been 
located, and mining districts, in greater or lesser number, organized. 
Froiseth's new map of Utah shows 80 of these new mining districts, cov- 
ering more than 1,000,000 acres, crowding each other most in Salt Lake, 
Utah, Juab, and Beaver Counties. Box-Elder, Tooele, Millard, Piute, and Iron 
Counties have a plentiful sprinkling of them. Whei'ever there are moun- 
tains the prospector has been, and left his footprints in the shape of mining 
-districts. Very many of them are abandoned, true, but this is more often on 
account of inaccessibility, want of capital, and other unfavorable circum- 
stances, than because of the lack of merit or promise of the mining locations. 
After the time necessary to extend interior communication, and to acquire 



24 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

\ 
full knowledge of the nature of the ores and the best methods of reducing 
them, we may expect these districts to be re-visited, labor resumed, and with 
permanently prolltable results. The mining history of the Rocky Mountains 
and the Pacillc Slope records nothing more striking than the sudden resur- 
rection of apparently lifeless mining camps. Leadville, Bodie, Salmon River, 
and Pioche are examples. The records of the Land Ollicc in Salt Lake City 
show 487 applications for patents to mines in Utali, and the issue of 302 
patents. 

Mineral Belt. — The most important mineral belt of the Territory, so far 
as known, tirst makes its appearance on a sort of break-down in the Wasatch 
Range, drained off north and south and ultimately west by the Weber and 
Provo Rivers, in the vicinity of the Twin Peaks, which are 1:3,000 feet above 
tide water, and mark the culmination of the magniticeut range overlooking 
Salt Lake City. Thence it extends over the crest of the Wasatch westward, 
covering the sources of the Cottonwoods and .American Fork, skips across 
Jordan Valley, about 20 miles south of Salt Lake City, and re-appears in the 
Oquirrh, an isolated range separating the Jordan and Rush Valleys. It iu- 
cludes the mines of Park City, the Cottonwoods, American Fork, Bingham 
Canon, Ophir, and Di'y Canon. 

Park CU'j. — The leading mine about Park City is the Ontario. On its 500 
foot level, the lowest as yet opened, it presents a regular vein of pay ore 
about four feet wide, without a break or pinch, 1,150 feet long, and it is of 
full strength and richness where it strikes the boundary between the Ontario^ 
and Last Chance ground. Such a sight is very seldom seen in the working 
of mines. The formation is quartzite, the vein dips about twenty degrees to- 
the north, and it is stronger, richer, and more regular on this level than on 
either level above. It had produced .$4, 150,956 January 31, 187'J, .$2,000,000- 
of which had been disbursed in dividends since the stock was put on the Mew 
York Market, and the ground between the 500 and 400 foot levels is yet 
almost untouched. The mine is provided with new hoisting and pumping 
machinery, calculated to answer all probable demands upon it to a depth of 
1,500 feet; a 40-stamp mill, and two Stetefeldt chloridizing furnaces, and 
has assured a long and prosperous future. The Marsac^and McIIenry Conv 
panics have each a 20-stamp mill with pans and settlers at Park City. Tlie 
former is now running its pans on Ontario tailings. The McHem-y mine is 
east of the Ontario, and it is believed has the same vein, all the leading 
characteristics both of vein matter and country rock being very similar. 
The intervening ground has been consolidated under the appellation of the- 
Ontario Hill, and a working capital of $50,000 is being raised to open aiul 
prospect the ground. There are other mines in this district, on which a good 
deal of work has been done, and which their owners have good ground to 
believe will ultimately prove paying properties. 

The Cottonwoods. — Crossing the range on to the Cottonwoods, from Park 
City, we have the Flagstaff, Emma, Alta Consolidated, Butte, North Star, 
Oregon Consolidated, City Rock, Island, Davenport, Lavinia, Manitoba, 
Toledo, Kesler, Reed & Benson, Prince of Wales, and some other mines, 
producing more or less ore, with a host of promising prospects. More than 
3,000 mining locations have been made, first and last, in tliese districts. The 



MINES AND MINING, MILLING AND SMELTING. 25 

mines of Little Cottouwood ai-e connected with tlie Utah Southern Railroad 
at Sandy, the headquarters of smeltini?, about twelve miles south of Salt 
Lake City, by the Wasatch & Jordan Valley Railroad, part of it tramway, 
housed in for protection from snow; and they have sent out an average of 
1,600 tons of ore per month for the last two years. The country rock is 
limestone, with some quartzite, resting on granite, and the ore occurs chiefly 
in deposits. Such was the Emma mine, as it was called, which produced in 
the aggregate 26,651 tons of ore, worth in gross, $2,581,408. A tunnel has 
been driven in under this old empty chamber, and from this seam of ore 
followed down 150 feet, which it is expected will open out into a larger and 
richer chamber than the old one. Farther prosecution of this work awaits 
the placing of machinery to take care of the water which makes in the 
shaft. 

The Flagstaff has been a large producer of ore for seven or eight years, 
turning out in all 125,000 tons, worth in gross at least $3,01:0,000, and 
workedonly to the 513 foot level below the tunnel, on an incline of 49 de- 
grees, the tunnel striking the vein 300 feet from the surface. The Alta Con- 
solidated, now owned by the Joab Lawrence Company, has recently struck, 
at a considerable depth in the hill, a deposit of $130 ore, the extent of which 
has not been definitely ascertained as yet. Meanwhile it is producing at the 
rate of $40,000 a month. The Toledo is the only lode in the district, so far 
as known, that is in quartzite country; it seems to be a true fissure vein, 
and shows two feet or more of $200 ore, on different levels, and extending a 
considerable distance laterally on each. The Prince of Wales has produced 
altogethex-, a round million, one-half of which has been expended in opening 
the mine. The main incline has been sunk on the incline 950 feet, and level 
No. 3, which is nearly 700 feet down the incline, is opened on the vein for 
2,400 feet. There is still a great deal of unexploited ground above the foot 
of the main incline, and the vein api>ears to be a true fissure. Tiie Kesler 
turned out $226,000 in about one year. The Reed & Benson, Butte, Orewn 
Consolidated, City Rock, Island, Lavinia, Davenport, North Star, and some 
others beside those especially referred to, make steady if not large shipments 
of ore ; and still other mines are preparing to. The Emma, Flagstaff, Prince 
of Wales, Toledo, Lavinia, Butte and Alta Consolidated, have steam hoisting 
and pumping machinery. There are a good many mines in the Cottonwoods 
that only need further exploitation, which requires capital, not always readily 
obtainable, to make them dividend-paying. 

Bingham Canon.— The formation here is quartzite and limestone, chiefly 
the former, underlaid by syenite. The ores are base and of comparatively 
low grade, and below the water level, where they in general become sul- 
phurets, it has not yet been found practicable to mine and reduce thtm at a 
profit as a rule. Hence a group of noted mines, consisting of the Jordan, 
Winnarauck, Neptune & Kempton, Yosemite, Utah, and Spanish, which 
have together turned out some 300,000 tons of ore, containing $15 to $25 a 
ton, lead and silver, are now worked but little, having been practically 
exhausted above the water level. The same is true of a great many smaller 
mines. With lower freights, cheaper labor and fuel, and more skill, the 
sulphuret ores of this district will be attacked again, and no doubt with 



2<) THE UESOIJKCES OF UTAIT. 

success. Tlie leading producing mine of Bingham Canon at present is the 

■Old Telegraph, a consolidation of several locations under that appellation, 
which has turned out 50,000 to GO, 000 tons of ore within three years, at a 
profit of nearly a million dollars. The ground is 3,900 feet long, and is 
cnt by gukhos into ridges 400 to 5(0 feet high, out of which ore passes and 
water runs in obedience to natural laws, requiring direction only. The vein 
is of great strength; is opened by adits on different levels to a depth of 
nearly 500, and a length of 1,400 feet, and has large reserves of ore in sight, 
(oiiueeted with the mine by rail and about lifteen miles distant on the River 
Jordan, are the Old Telegraph Reduction Works, consisting of crushing, 
leaching, concentrating, roasting, and smelting apparatus, capable of 

■ treating 100 tons of oi*e a day. 

The next most important mine in the district is the Stewart, which appears 
to be an immense deposit of gold quartz, containing from .$10 to ^20 per ton. 
It is an old location, but its value was only recently discovered. It is good 
from the grass-roots, and furnishes a 20-stamp mill at present, which turns 
out from $400 to $)S00 a day. Since attention was drawn to the value of 
this kind of rock, prospecting in the vicinity of the Stewart has taken on 
renewed life, and the outcrop of deposits with similar characteristics has 
been found, which there is ground to hope will prove to be equally valuable 
upon development. The Hampton is the only other productive gold mine in' 
the district. It is a vertical vein, two or three feet in width, and quite regu- 
lar for 400 feet laterally, and the same in depth, which is as far as it is de- 
veloped. A 10-stamp gold mill belongs to the mine, and the whole con- 
stitutes a very good property. Tliere are several producing mines at Bing- 
ham Canon besides these, but only in a small way at preseut for the most 
part. The district is connected with the Utah Southern Railroad at Sandy 
by the Bingnam Canon Railroad, and it has sent out an average of 2,500 tous 

'Of ore monthly for the last two years. 

East and Dry Canons. — The Oquirrh Range continues south from Salt 
Lake about seveuty-tive miles, gradually subsiding into the basin at large. 
It is covered with mining districts its entire length, and for much of its area 
wi h mining locations. On its western slope, opposite Bingham Canon, are 
the Ophir and Dry Canon mines in a limestone country. The chief produc- 
ing mine is the Hidden Treasure, an immense deposit of lead ore, worked to 
a depth of 1,G00 feet on the incline. Here also are the Miner's Delight, 
Mountain Lion, Zella, Mono, Queen of the Hills, Chicago, and many others, 
the surface bonanzas of which have been exhausted and work struck for 
want of disposition or means to go deeper or wider in exploitation. One 

•day new conditions, greater knowledge, accident, or luck, or pluck, will 
break this spell of idleness and the busy hum of mining industry will again 
enliven Oplur and Dry Canons. 

The Stockton mines lie furtiier north toward Salt Lake on the western 
slope of the Oiiuirrh, and are being steadily wrought about the same as ever. 
The Utah Western Railroad connects them with Salt Lake City, turning the 
north end of the range via the Lake shore. This railway has a favorable 
4'oute tlirougli Rush and Tintic valleys west of the 0<iuirrh along its entire 



LJii J;..\-V. <;'-.Htf - 








■s?v| 



w^e 



MINES AND MINING, MILLING AND SMELTING. 27 

length resembling in tliis respect the main railroad route through the Jordan 
and Utah Lake valleys, from which it is but a step to the mouths of the 
mining canons. 

Tintic. — South of Bingham Canon, on the Oquirrh, arc the Camp Floyd 
and Tintic mines. The Crismon-Mammoth, at Tintic, has a twenty-seven 
stamp-mill, and large bodies of oi-dinary ore carrying silver, gold, and 
copper, with an occasional bunch of gold quartz full of the visible metal 
and of course exceedingly rich. The mine is hardly second in repute to any 
in the Territory. But the owners are largely engaged in stock growing, and 
have never devoted themselves to mining as a business. Hence the product 
of the mine, though steady, has not been extraordinary. A second promising 
property at Tintic is that of the Eureka Hill Company, a consolidation of 
several parallel ledges outcropping on the face of a foothill 700 or 800 feet 
high. A good deal of money has been realized from the property, but most 
of it has been returned to it in the way of exploitation. So far the main 
vein, if there is one, has not been found. The ore occurs in pockets without 
any apparent connection or regularity; but recently a fault crossing the 
strike of the outcrop has been broken into from which a carload of .$50 ore 
is daily taken; and the company has stronger expectations than ever of 
finding the source of the bunches and pockets of ore so profusely scattered 
over the face and through the hill. Among other noted mines of the district 
are the Julian Lane, Sunbeam, Joe Bowers, and Mammoth Copperopolis. 
The ores are both milling and smelting. Some of them are shipped away 
and some worked on the ground. There are four mills, aggregating sixty- 
two stamps. The Shoebridge mill uses Hunt & Douglass' patent lixiviation 
process. The Wyoming mill chloridizes with a Stetefeldt furnace. The 
supply of water is limited; there is plenty of wood for fuel; but mining 
timbers and lumber have to be imported. The nearest appx'oach of any rail- 
road is at Santaquin, about twenty miles distant. 

Beaver County. — Nearly the whole of the eastern half of Beaver County 
is organized into mining districts, and the mineral croppings cover an area 
of many square miles. The leading mine is the Horn Silver, situated about 
•i()0 miles south of Salt Lake City, and to be connected therewith by rail this 
year. The owners recently sold a one-half interest for $2,500,000. 20,000 
tons of the ore have been smelted, which, it is claimed, yielded an average 
of about 50 ounces of silver per ton, and from 35 to 45 per cent lead. The mine 
is opened by shaft, winzes, and Ave levels to a depth of 320, and a length of 
350 feet. The gangue is heavy spar, the strike nearly north and south, the 
dip 20°, and the average thickness of the ore between walls is 50 feet. The 
owners have four furnaces on the ground, and refining works in Chicago. 
A new working shaft, to strike the vein at a depth of 500 feet, is being sunk ; 
steam hoisting works and one additional smelting stack are to be provided. 
The railroad between the mine and Salt Lake City will be done, it is be- 
lieved, before October. There is little doubt that there are 500,000 tons of 
ore tecluiically in sight, which can be taken out and reduced or disposed of 
at a profit of $20 a ton. The mine produced $800,000 in 1878. With its new 
facilities, its gross product for 1880 should be $2,000,000. Thei'e are other 
mines and prospects of great promise in Beaver County which may be ex- 
pected to prove profitable as soon as rendered accessible by rail. Rare ores, 



28 



THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 



as of bismuth, cobalt, and molybdennm, are found in some of the districts' 
The region, as a wliole, is not so amply supplied with water and timber as 
those generally in Salt Lake County; but, so far, none of the mines of Utah 
have found mucli didiculty in this respect. Such trouble as there may have 
been is likelv to be lessened, if not obviated altogether, by the increase of 
transportation facilities. 

iS'cfii'r liirrr. — East of Beaver, towanl the head of the Sevier, in perhaps 
the best endowed and pleasanlest part of Utah, are the mines of Mount 
Baldy and Bullion City. The country at the first is limestone, at the last, 
porphyritic granite. The Deer Trail Mine is drawing attention to the Mount 
Baldy District by the steadiness of its shipments and the richness of its ores. 
It is not a great mine like the Ontario, the Flagstaff, Old Telegraph, Crismon- 
Mammoth, or Big Bonanza, but it will compare favorably with anything else 
in Utali so far as d^jveloped. There are some strong veins at B illion City, 
five or six miles up Pine Creek from Marysvale, and a few years ago consid- 
erable work was done on them. But they were of comparatively low grade 
and sulpliurets, chiefly, requiring costly mills for their successful treatment; 
and so, although the quantity was practically unlimited, and Avater, timber, 
and supplies were plenty and cheap, it was found impossible to work them 
to advantage, and the district was pretty much abandoned. There is known 
to be at least one mine there, however, namely, the Bully Boy & Webster, 
entitled to rank with the best in Utah, having 40 to 45 feet of .$45 rock. 
Trouble with titles, among other things, is understood to have prevented the 
development and working of this mine. That is now settled and disposed 
of, and a return of life and business to the district may be looked for at any 
time. 

Silver Hccf. — The Sevier River flows northward from the southern rim of 
the Great Basin. Beyond, the country is drained by the Rio Colorado. A 
writer says of that region : "The mountains composed of bright red sand- 
stone, devoid of every semblance of soil or vegetation, and rearing them- 
selves jagged, flaming, and precipitous in the sky, are picturesque to the limit 
of conception. In the lower regions black volcanic rock is abundant, add- 
ing the charm of contrast to the feature of novelty. The whole surface of 
the country looks like the bedrock of the infernal regions, or like the scene 
of some stupendous conflagration during which everything animate was con- 
sumed, and nothing left save this great furnace of liery sandstone, which 
seems to be still at a red lieat." Bare, and desolate, and unpromising as it 
may be, the indomitable prospector has not only visited it, but pitched his 
camp in it. The flourishing district of Silver Reef, with a half-dozen paying 
mines, turning out .$1,200,000 in fine bullion every year, is the result. Not 
only is the country sandstone, but so is the ore in general, although it in- 
cludes sea-sliells, wood, and even coal. The rock is not very rich, but it is 
easily mined and milled, an ordinary stamp crushing six or eight tons of it 
in 24 hours. Distance from railroads, lack of facilities, and high prices make 
it about as expensive work as it is anywhere, however. The sandstone reef, 
in which these ores occur is 100 miles long, and no reason is known why it 
should not present the same phenomena anywhere. There is little or nothing 
in the appearance of the silver-bearing rock to indicate the presence of sil- 
ver, and a test is really the only means of ascertaining. It lies in strata, or 



MINES AND MINING, MILLING AND SMELTING. 29 

between the strata, and as to the thickness or extent of the formation con- 
taining it, little is as yet known. Work has been carried on there now two 
years, and the Leeds Company has taken out nearly $500,000. Deposits of 
rich copper ore have also been found in the sandstone near the Colorado 
River, and an eastern company is preparing to develop them. 

3IILLINQ AND 83IELTING. 
Most of the mills have already been mentioned. They are here tabulated: 

Mill. Locality. Stamps. 

Ontario Park City 40 

Marsac " 20 

McHenry '< 20 

Lawrence Ophir 10 

Stewart Brigham 20 

Steamboat " 10 

Camp Floyd Camp Floyd 20 

Wyoming Homansville 10 

Crismon-Mamraoth Tintic 27 

Mammoth-Copperopolis " 10 

Shoebridge " 15 

North Star Beaver County 20 

Stormont Silver Reef 10 

Leeds " 10 

Christy " 5 

Buckeye " 3 

Barbee " ... 5 

Two hundred and fifty-five stamps in all, with probatly 120 pans, and 60 
settlers.' There are beside, three concentrating mills, using 40 stamps, with 
accompaniment of jigs, tyes, and revolving tables. The Ontario mill cost, 
inclusive of two Stetefeldt furnaces, steam power, necessary shops, store 
and boarding houses, and offices, all complete, $250,000. The Shoebridge 
mill cost $100,000. The Camp Floyd, Marsac, and McHenry, cost $80,000 
to $100,000 each, exclusive of chlorodizing furnaces. Tlie cost ranges, it 
will be seen, between $4,000 and $G,000 a stamp, but the mill proper repre- 
sents but little more than half that goes under the name. Ordinary gold 
mills, that is, for free rock, cost a good deal less. The cost of milling the 
gold rock at Bingham cannot exceed two or three dollars a ton, since it has 
only to be put through the batteries. At Silver Reef the gangue is sand- 
stone, and is clieaply crushed, but the pulp has to be amalgamated in pans. 
The cost per ton to the Leeds Company, in 1878, was $5.75. At the Ontario, 
for 1877, it was $12.96, but there the ore is wet and base and the process 
more complicated. It has to be dried before crushing, then clilorodized, 
then amalgamated. Milling always includes hauling from the mine, and of 
course keeping the mill in repair, providing the power, etc. Where w^ater 
can be used instead of steam the cost is lighter. The Ontario mill is about 
thirty miles from Salt Lake City by wagon, its supply entrepot. In treating 
base ores the cost of salt and chemicals is a large item, too. Free gold ores 
should be milled for $3 a ton under ordinary circumstances ; free silver ores 
for $9 ; base silver ores for $16, and base gold ores for from $20 to $25. 

SmeUing. — Most of the Utah ores, so far, have been lead ores. They are 
run through stacks of different make and pattern, and of an average capacity 



30 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

of fifteen to twenty tons in twentj'-four hours. There are four or five of 
these at Frisco, and two or three at Kusli Lalce; but the liead(|uarters of 
stneltinKis on tiie Cottonwoods and the Jonian, witliin twelve miles of Salt 
l>ake City. In this vicinity there are fifteen stacks, five belonging to the Old 
Telegraph, four to the Mingo, three to the Gerniania, two to C. W. SchoUeld 
and one to B. W. Morgan. Here and at Salt Lake City are the sampling 
mills. Ordinarily, only the fifth or tenth sack of a lot of ore is sampled, and 
it costs a dollar a ton for the lot. If the whole is sampled, it costs $4 a ton- 
The sampler crushes to the size of peas, and sends sealed packages to the 
assayers, upon whose certificates it is sold or bought. The smelters have 
no schedule prices for ores. In buying, they take the lead and silver in tliem 
at New York prices; deduct live percent for loss on gold and silver in smelt- 
ing, and ten per cent on lead; $20 freight per ton of bullion to New York; 
$1C> to $18 per ton of bullion for refining; and $10 to #12 per ton of ore for 
smelting. They probably do as good work in this line as is done anywhere 
in this country. The ores of Nevada and Idaho are sent to the Salt Lake 
market in greater quantity every year. At a smelting works there must be 
l)0wer for crushing and for making blast. The cost depends on the number 
and kind of stacks; a stack by itself, exclusive of power, may cost #5,000. 
Fluxing is generally induced by the simple mixing of ferruginous with 
silicious ores. Sometimes limestone has to be introduced to secure the 
proper equilibrium. The cost is from $S to $18 a ton, according as silica or 
sulphur, or both, are present in the ores. The iron ore chiefly used is a. 
brown hematite from Tintic, furnished and delivered at $7.50 a ton. Con- 
nellsville coke, worth $23.50 a ton, delivered, and charcoal at 10 cents a 
bushel (15 to 20 elsewhere in the Territory) are used for fuel. It is believed 
that Utah coke will ultimately supersede the imported article, but it has not 
yet. About 8,000 tons of refined lead have been made by the Germania, 
their product of 1878, some 1,500 tons, being sold in China and shipped there 
from Utah direct. 

Leaching. — Kustel's process of treating silver ores, either naturally or 
artificially chloridized, by leaching with a solution of hyposulphide of soda,, 
and precipitating with sulphide of calcium, has been tried at several points 
in Utah, but only the Old Telegraph has made a success of it. Roasting the 
ores with salt chloridizes the silver, and costs, usually, from .f3 to $5 a ton. 
This has to be done with all base or sulphui-et ores, which are then amalga- 
mated in pans. It is very doubtful if leaching will ever supersede this pro- 
cess, but it may be safely adopted with ores in which the silver is largely a 
chloride, or with ores containing considerable chloride that rau.«t be con- 
centrated by wet process. At the Old Telegraph mine they formerly had 
leaching works of sixty tons capacity per day, and it cost to riui them, in- 
cluding power for crushing, crushing, passing through the tubs, chemicals, 
and melting the sulphurets into bars, $70 a day. This was exclusive of wear 
and tear of machinery, of which they used a light engine, rolls, and a 
Bruckner ball pulverizer. The original cost of the hyposulphide of soda for 
such a business was about $300, and to repair waste and supply the precipi- 
tant, on the class of ores treated, cost at the rate of $100 a year. On different 
ores it might be much greater of course. The other plant was wooden tubs.. 
The Old Telegraph, having to concentrate some of its ores, and losing largely 



MINES AND MINING, MILLING AND SMELTING. 31 

in the process, built leacliing tubs of 100 tons capacity per day, at tiie re- 
duction works on the Jordan, and here tlie cost of leaching proper is very 
slight, less than half a dollar a ton. 

Cost of Mining, Wages and Supplies. — The cost of mining varies widely in 
different mines, depending upon the strength and regularity of the vein, 
character of vein matter, amount of dead work, of timbering and pumping, . 
and upon locality. At the Ontario it was $6.68 per ton in 1877. At the Flag- 
staff it is calculated by the present manager to be $9 a ton. At the Old 
Telegraph it is f4 to f5; at Silver Reef, $6 to $7; at the Horn Silver it is 
comparatively light, but when they come to have to timber extensively, it 
will probably be from $3 to $5. In all the mining of Utah it varies between 
$3 and f 10, averaging much nearer the latter than the former figure. In 
northern Utah and about the smelters, laborers command from $1.50 to $1.75 
per diem; miners fi'om $2.50 to $3.50. In the sandstone country, and gen- 
erally in the south, wages are twenty-flve per cent higher. Supplies are 
perhaps fifteen per cent higher in the mining camps generally than in Salt 
Lake City and the chief towns. In these, farm produce, hay, grain, flour 
and fresh meats are about as cheap as in the States. Groceries are imported, 
and necessarily bear the additional cost of freight. Of mining machinery 
and hardware the same may be said, but Utah has the advantage of compe- 
tition in this respect between San Francisco and the East. Most of the fuel 
used for power is brought from the coal mines on the Union Pacific Railroad, 
and cost at Salt Lake City and in the Jordan Valley, $7 or $8 a ton ; at the 
Bingham Canon or Cottonwood mines, $12 to $15; the cost in both cases be- 
ing chiefly freight. At Park City the supply is drawn from Coalville, and 
costs $6 or $7 a ton, wood being $4 a cord. With the San Pete coalfields of 
Utah rendered accessible by rail, the price of coke and coal should be re- 
duced by one-half. Cheaper fuel is the great want of the mining and smelt- 
ing industry. 

Following were wholesale prices current of staple articles, groceries, 
supplies, etc., at Salt Lake City, in April, 1879, to-wit: 

Teas,, per lb 25c to $1.35 

Coffees, per lb 17c to 45c 

Sugars, per lb H^c to 13c 

Hams, per lb lie to 12c 

Clear bacon sides, per lb , 73x^c 

Lard, per lb 12c to 13c 

Cattle on foot, per \U 5c to 6c 

Sheep, per head $ 2.60 to $ 4.00 

Mackerel, per kit 1.75 to 3.00 

Whisky, per gal 2.00 to 6.00 

Flour, per cental 1 .75 to 2.25 

Corn, per cental 1 20 

Oats, per cental 1 .75 

Barley, per cental 1 .25 to 1.50 

Wheat, per busliel 70 

Bar iron, per cwt 4.25 

Cast steel, per cwt 15.00 to 21.00 

Nails, per cwt. ... 4.50 

Mining candles, per box 3.15 

Lumber, common, per M 25.00 to 30.00 

Lumber, finishing, per M 40.00 to 45.00 

Coal, carload lots, per ton 6.00 to 7.05 



32 T1LI-: UESOURCES OF UTAH. 

In this review it lias not been the object to notice every mining district, 
but only those of most importance, and the same may be said of the mines. 
There is a minin-i district in the northwest, (Tecoma,) and In the extreme 
west, (Deep Creek,) and on the American Fork, and others of considerable 
importance, in which, for different reasons, not much is now doing. They 
will all be heard of in time, however, and to atlvantage. 



, CHAPTER \'. 

COAL, IRON, AM) OTHER MINERALS. 

The records of the Salt Lake City Land Oflice show that 125,980 acres 
have been returned on the surveyor's plats as coal lands since 1870, from 
the counties and localities subjoined as follows : 

County. Locality. Acres. 

Kane . North of Kanab 35,696 

Kane On the Paria 13,«88 

San Pete Pleasant Valley 34,332 

Sevier Lower Castle Valley ' 11, 013 

Iron Iron City to Parowan (1,240 

Wasatch Green River 2,840 

Summit About Coalville 1 9,931 

Tooele South of Ophir City 1,160 

Box Elder West of Mendou 800 

Rich South of Randolph 160 

Morgan 120 

The public land surveys in Utah began in 1856, and no return v/as made 
by the surveyors of coal lands as such down to 1870 and there are vast 
tracts of unsurveyed laud, so that these figures give no adequate idea of the 
extent of Utah's coals. There are indications and some surface coals here 
and there in the Great Basin proper; there are available beds on the Weber 
and Saupitch, before they break out into the Basin, and at Cedar City in Iron 
county ; but the great coal field of Utah lies on the watershed of the Colo- 
rado, from where Green River enters the Territory on the North, along the 
southern slope of the Uintah and the eastern slope of the Wasatch to Kanab 
and Paria, 20,000 square miles. The formation may have been entirely 
carried off by erosion in considerable areas; but it was all originally under- 
laid by coal, and the upper edge of it, lying along the eastern face of the 
Wasatch, from Pleasant Valley down through Castle Valley to the Colorado, 
has not been eroded away. 

A railroad eastward from Salina through the canon would strike midway 
the Castle Valley coal field, which is twenty or thirty miles wide by 150 miles 
long, the coal cut into and exposed here and there by the canons of the 
streams. A railroad from Springville, on the Utah Southern, through Spanish 
Fork Canon, will strike the head of Pleasant Valley in fifty-two miles, from 
which a way can probal^ly be found into Castle Valley. The latter road is 
being constructed, and will reach Pleasant Valley this summer. The former 
leaves the Utah Southern at Nephi, and reaches the Wales coal vein on the 
Sanpitch in twenty-seven miles. This it is promised will also be constructed 



COAL, IRON, AND OTHER MINERALS. 33 

'this season, the grade through the canon having been nearly completed a few 
years ago. From Wales down the Saupitch to the Sevier, and up -the Sevier 
to Salina, is an easy route, and the canon thence into Castle Valley is said to 
be practicable for a railroad. 

Utah's supply of coal is absolutely Inexhaustible, and it will not much 
longer be inaccessible. It is probably a lignite, like all the coals of the 
Rocky Mountain region, containing about 50 per cent of fixed carbon, al- 
though it is claimed that the vein at Wales, which is four feet thick, eight 
miles long, and supposed to continue into the mountain six miles, is semi- 
bituminous. It dips about fifteen degrees from the horizontal, and is opened 
to a depth of 1,100 feet. There are twenty improved Belgian coke ovens 
here, and before the owners suspended work, they made and marketed 100 
car loads of coke. They crush the coal and wash out the alien substances 
first. That the Utah coal should make good coke is what is chiefly wanted, 
since the Territory has in six years imported for smelting purposes more 
than 46,000 tons of coke, at a cost of 81,300,000. In Pleasant Valley the 
beds are nearly horizontal, and so thick that a train of box cars might be 
backed into the openings to be loaded. Coke has been made here, and also 
at another locality eighteen miles to the southward, but not in any consider- 
able amount. Tlie foundrymen of Salt Lake City give the Pleasant Valley 
coal a very decided preference over any other Utah or Wyoming coal for 
blacksmithing. There is little doubt that our largest coal field has the thickest 
beds and furnishes the best coal. 

The beds about Coalville, on the Weber, three to six miles by rail from 
the Union Pacific Railroad at Echo, have been worked for twelve years, and 
have turned out perhaps 100,000 tons of coal. There are two veins, 300 feet 
apart, the upper one five feet thick, mixed with shale and slate ; the lower 
one ten feet thick, clear coal, dipping from the horizon about 20 deg. opened 
off and on, in the face, for about seven miles, the deepest workings a thou- 
sand feet. The mountain bordering the Weber is cut down by Chalk and Grass 
creeks. The vein crops out one to two miles above the mouth of Chalk Creek 
half way between it and Gi'ass Creek, and about five miles up the latter. 
There are two mines worked to a depth of 1,000 feet, and seven or eight from 
200 to 400. Three or four of them have steam power for working and pump- 
ing; and they are capable of producing 6,000 tons a month. Some of the 
coal ranks high in quality as a house fuel; some of it comparatively low, but 
this is near the surface. Coal outcrops eleven miles above Coalville on the 
Weber, not worked for coal, but for a kind of soap clay, used in large quantity 
for washing sheep and wool, and which overlies the coal. The Iron County 
coal, as well as the coal about Kanab and on the Paria, is the same as that 
of Castle and Pleasant valleys, while that returned from Tooele, Box Elder 
Rich, and Morgan counties has not been developed enough to determine its 
quantity or quality. 

It is perhaps too early to pronounce, finally, on the coking qualities of 
any Utah coal. Smelters who have used the Utah coke are divided in opinion 
^s to its availability. Mr. J. Blodgett Brittan, the Philadelphia iron master 
gives the following analysis of the coal and the coke from it : 
. 3 



34 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

ro;il. ('oke. 

Volatile matter ^ 40.01 2.70 

Fixed carbon 4^.21 i)4.05 

Ash 1.88 3.25 

Mr. Brittan says the Western coals contain more water than the Pennsyl- 
vania bituminous coals. What they want, if anything, is the bitumen, to 
cake or coke them. They have not the consistency to bear the Aveight of the 
furnace charge; crumble up too readily. After tlie coal railroads are done, 
a short time will tell. We may contidently expect then to have fuel lifty per 
te.it cheaper than ever before, which will enable the smelters to handle ores 
of a lower grade than ihey can at present. For the last seven years Utah 
has imported from Wyoming 45,000 tons of coal, costing, delivered, nearly 
half a million dollars per annum. With the railroad system extended to the 
Utah coal, the Territory would be served with a better article, be saved all 
of this outgo of cash, and consumers would get it at half the present cost. 

lEOy. 

Ores of iron, magnetite, red, brown, ocherous, and librous hematite, are 
found all over the Territory. There are beds thirty and forty feet thick of 
micaceous hematite at Smithfield, iu Cache County, carrying 70 per cent me- 
tallic iron. All albout Ogden occurs deposits and ledges of various kinds of 
iron ores. On the Provo, below Kamas; on the Weber, and in Ogden Can- 
on; on the Wasatch above AVillard and above Bountiful; in City Creek Can- 
on, at Tintic, on the Cottonwuods, and in the far south, iron ore in all its 
forms is found. Indeed, it would be easier to tell where it is not in Utah 
than where it is. Nodules of iron ore found bedded in clay near Ogden have 
been beaten out into horse shoes. There is one of these in the Salt Lake 
Museum, in which native silver may be seen with a glass. A good deal of 
the iron ore in the Territory carries enough silver to make it valuable for sil- 
ver, aside for its use in fluxing silicious ores. Nearly all the deposits or 
veins at Little Cottonwood have a stratum of this kind of iron ore. The 
brown hematite ledge at Tintic is 25 by (JO feet in the face, and 1,200 feet 
long — an immense quarry. So is the deposit above Willard, but it may prove 
a ledge of fissure ultimately. 

The great iron deposits of Utah, however, are in Iron County, and occur 
thickly iu the form of massive outbursts of fissures in granite from Cedar 
City to the Santa Clara, a belt five to ten miles wide and sixty long. These 
ledges, carrying from 60 to 70 per cent of metallic iron, and very pui'e ; are 
from 25 to 75 feet thick, and as long as ordinary fissures of that strength 
would usually be. Sometimes they form combs standing alone 20 feet above 
the granite country rock, perhaps a hundred yards. Millions of tons have 
been mined, that is, torn out and scattered over the hillsides, by washes. A 
published letter from Mr. Brittan, the iron-master above referred to, says: 
" Some time ago I analyzed a number of samples of iron ore and limestone 
from Southern Utah, and have information as to the magnitude of the de- 
posits. At first I was somewhat inclined to discredit the statements, but af- 
terward had them confirmed by a well-known English iron-master, who had 
himself visited the locality. I now hold the impression that these deposits 



COAL, IROX, AND OTHER MINERALS. 35 

are among the wonders of the workl. If such coke as you sent me can be 
produced there in quantity, Utah's iron resources must exceed those of any 
other section of the Union." 

There are hirge limestone ledges and deposits of argillaceous oxides of 
iron, suitable for fluxing, in the vicinity. The Great AVestern Iron Mining 
and Manufacturing Company, located on the ground, made a hundnni tons of 
iron from these ores, which the foundrymen of Salt Lake City, after trial, 
pronounce of an excellent quality for machinery castings, for merchant iron, 
iron or steel rails, anything, in short, but stoves and the lighter castings. 
No doubt more experience and skill would render it available for these 
purposes. Distance from rail and market has prevented the making of iron 
on a large scale at a profit. The Utah Southern will be within £0 miles of 
Cedar City by next fall, and their further route lies directly through this 
incomparable iron district. Whether these deposits have sufticient com- 
mercial value to justify heavy investment in their development is a question 
of which iron workers must be the judges. Iron ores have to be taken 
where skilled labor is plentiful to be profitably utilized. That is the great 
desideratum in their working, greater even, than the supply of fuel suitable 
for smelting. So much depends on the workmen in the iron business that it 
can only be carried on successfully at gi'eat manufacturing centres, where 
other skilled hands can be summoned by stepping to the door, when the 
piiddler, for exa*mple, strikes work at a critical moment. With the freight 
tariff of $20 to -f-tO a ton for protection, it would seem that Utah's iron and 
coal should be made something of in connection with each other. That is 
the advantage capital locked up in idle furnaces in the East would gain by 
transferring itself to Utah. 

OTHER MINEBALS. 

Sulphur is formed by the condensation of escaping sulphur fumes from vol- 
canic laboratories. . There are several beds of it in Utah, most important of 
which is one in Millard County, fifteen miles from the route of the Utah 
Southern Railroad. It covers nearly 300 acres, and of many openings made 
by shaft and cut none shows it to be less than twenty feet thick. At tluit 
depth the still active exhalations become intolerable. Some of it is 98 fine 
but the average is about 65 ; the sulphur beds of Sicily being 20. The com- 
mercial value of the Utah find is chiefly a question of transportation. Rock 
salt, much of it almost perfectly pure, is mined in Salt Creek Canon and on 
the Sevier. The northern part of Utah abounds in salt springs, perpetually 
pouring into Salt Lake. The brine of Salt Lake is about 17 per cent solid 
matter, averaging the lake, 85 per cent of which solid matter is salt. As 
evaporation of this water proceeds, the glauber and epsom salts naturally 
separate from the common salt, so that much of the article manufactured is 
97 fine. The sun makes thousands of tons every season, as the annual spring 
tide of the lake recedes from its ragged and shelving shores, most of which 
is left to be reabsorbed by the yearly returning waters, there being no ade- 
quate demand for it. Perhaps §,000 tons a year are used, chiefly in chlorid- 
izing silver ores. For this purpose it is sent into adjoining Territories ta- 
some extent. The price in Salt Lake City of the crude article is five or six. 



36 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

dollars a ton. A line salt for table and household use is manufactured from 
the sun and shore product of Salt Lake. Gypsum, both in the crystalized 
and oxidized state, is very plentiful in Utah, the most noticeable beds or 
ledfies being in San Pete County, about Cove Creek, on the Muddy, and es- 
pecially near Nephi. There is a vertical ledj^e of gypsum just back of Nephi 
100 feet wide and 1,200 feet long, enough to supply all possible demand in 
the Itocky Mountains to the end of time. 

In connection with the iron ore beds the red and yellow ochres abound 
and are widely disseminated. In the Salt Lake Mu.scum there are samples 
of lead, iron, and chrome pigments, Venetian red, lire-proof paints, chrome 
yellow and green, and white and red lead, made from native ochres and lead. 
Yet no one seems to have i)roduced these articles in quantity and quality to 
make them objects of commerce, or even to supply the home demand. The 
shale beds, underlying which in strata not exceeding twelve inches in thick- 
ness occurs what is called mineral wax, appear to extend over an area of a 
thousand square niiks, and to be from sixty to one hundi-ed feet thick, the 
part rich in gas and parafHne oils twenty to forty feet thick, with occasional 
thin seams of coal. They are cut across and exposed by. Spanish Fork 
Canon, and are similar in general characteristics to the waxrbearing beds of 
Galicia, in Austria. Whether these shales are rich enough to justify distilla- 
tion has not been tested on a working scale, but it is believed they are. 
Thorough prospecting with oil-well tools might develop, a new petroleum 
district. The Tromoutory Kange, which projects thirty miles into Great 
Salt Lake from the north, bears vast beds of alum shales, and a similar 
formation is meS with in San Pete County, on tlie Sevier, while alum, in 
combination with other minerals, is found almost everywhere. It has not 
been put to any use as yet. 

Various kinds of soluble salts, appearing generally in shales or as a 
surface elllorescence, sometimes several inches in thickness, are found in 
different localities in Utah. Near Independence Rock, Emigration Canon, 
the carbonate of soda exuding fiom the ground was used by the first immi- 
grants in making bread, and it answered very well. On the Salt Desert 
west of Great Salt Lake there are great quantities of saleratus, and in many 
places in the south there are shales and beds of exuded salts thick and ex- 
tensive enough to justify more attention than the subject seems to have 
received. 

Much of the Tiutic and other iron ores used in fluxing lead ores, and 
supposed to be 50 to CO per cent iron, is in truth about 40 per cent iron and 
20 per cent manganese. This kind of ore is especuilly valuable in making 
Bessemer steel. There are veins of sulphuret of antimony three to six feet 
thick near lirigham City, averaging fur the entire vein matter 20 to 30 per 
cent antimony, some of it assaying twice as high. Once separated from the 
gangue the antimony could be smelted with the raw coal as cheaply as pig 
lead. Perhaps the separation might be accomplished by mechanical means. 
Antimony is worth 11 to 12 cents a pound. Mica abounds in southern Utah 
and in the range separating Weber from Salt Lake Valley, being exposed in 
City Creek and Farmingtou Canons. None in sufliciently large flakes to be 
of commercial value has yet beeu brought to light, but doubtless it would 



COAL, IRON, AND OTHER MINERALS. 37 

be were some one with means persistently to set about it. Clays of all 
varieties, brick-clays, clays for Are brick, fatty clays, potter's clays, and 
porcelain clays, or kaolins, are found in Utah in different places, west of 
Utah Lake, in Beaver, and Sevier, and Davis counties, and in many of the 
mines. The deposits west of Utah Lake, near Lehi, are quite remarkable, 
both as to quantity and quality. Fire brick are maxle from clay at Binj^ham 
Canon, while in Frisco Mining District there is a fire-stone which has super- 
seded fire brick in furnaces in that vicinity, and will througliout the Terri- 
tory when made accessible by rail. It is soft and can be cut like soapstnne, 
is in unlimited quantity, and hardens on exposure to the fire. Copper is 
found in nearly all of the mluing districts of Utah. Tintic, Big Cottonwood, 
and Snake districts are full of it. There are copper veins in Bingliaiii 
Canon and on Antelope 'Island, in Great Salt Lake, and outbursts of very 
rich copper ores in the sandstone country of the Colorado. Copper matte is 
amon^ the regular shipments of mineral products. It usually occurs in 
connection with other minerals, although there are purely copper veins 
carrying ores 12 per cent fine, which would seem too low to pay under ex- 
isting circumstances, since no mining for copper solely, is now carried on in 
the Territory. Utah and eastern people are preparing to utilize the deposit 
at Grand Gulf, below St. George, on the Colorado, but it is too soon as yet 
to more than wish them success. Mineral discovery and especially metal- 
lurgy are as yet iu the first stages of Infancy in Utah. Nothing has been 
sought after but the precious metals, and incidentally, their almost univer- 
sal matrix, lead. No one knows all the rare minerals available for commerce 
in the ores of the Territory, to say nothing of the ores still unearthed, the 
search for which has comparatively but just begun. Gold, silver, lead, 
copper, iron, coal, zinc, antimony, arsenic, sulphur, and salt are common 
and plentiful enough; but cinnebar, bismuth, cobalt, molybdenum, and 
perhaps some others are knoVvn to exist, and bismuth, both at Tintic and in 
Beaver county, it is believed, iu quantity and of a quality to be profitably 
mined. 

Of building stone there is scattered all over Utah, and very accessible, 
every variety, and in inexhaustible plenty. Among the best and best known 
are the granite, from the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canon ; the true red 
sandstone of Red Buttes, near Salt Lake City, and the white secondary 
sandstone or oolite of San Pete County. At Logan an easily quarried square 
breaking limestone, impregnated with iron, is largely used for buildings. 
Marbles, black, banded, variegated, cream-colored, gray, and white, all sus- 
ceptible of a fair and some of them of a fine polish, are found at various 
points ; as on the islands in Great Salt Lake, at Logan, Alpine City, Dry 
Canon, on the Provo, and at Tooele City. Marbles for cemeteries are cliiefly 
imported, however. It is still thought that no good thing can come out of 
Nazareth. The Logan marbles are beginning to be used some for slabs, 
furniture, mantel-pieces, etc. Antelope Island affords the best and largest 
slate quarry in Utah, so far as known. It is in unlimited quantity, green 
and royal purple in color, and is of as good quality as any slate of commerce, 
much better indeed, for roofing, sinks, or billiard tables than the slate im- 



58 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

I)or1.c(l from the East. Fossils of the Silurian, devonian, lower and upper 
carboniferous, pennian, cretaceous, and lower and upper tertiary formations 
abound in Utah, and specimens of them as well asof petrified woods, volcanic 
l)rod'icts, obsidian s^lasscs, majjjuetic sand, whatnot, may be seen in the Salt 
Lake Museum. 



CHAITHR \L 

MANUFACTURES AND MANUFACTURING OPPORTUNITIKS. 

The United States census returns for 1850 give !$2<)1,220 as the value of 
the product of manufactures, mining, and the mechanic arts in Utah at that 
lime. On the same authority it had increased to $!)00,153 in l.stio, and to 
|i2,843,019 in 1S70. Similar returns for 1875, published by order of tlie Utah 
Legislature, show it to have reached $3,831,817, as follows: 

IJiisinc'ss. No. rrodiH't. \.;liii'. 

I'^'loiir mills iiO 311,833 l)bls. at $7. !•; L', ISL',831 

.Sawmills 128 20,772, 80U feet. ■ 4'.tl,(i(0 

Jjaih and i)laiiln<i mills 15 125,780 

Wa-ion shops . .^ 1 25,000 

.{St.Mie quarries 28 2.s,2+6 

J.ime kilns 52 40,(i'.i3 

IJrick vards 41 11, 84G,75'.» brick. 1 !(;,758 

Woolen mills 8 ^ 311,034 

]*oHeries 15 21,050 

Tanneries 18 42,l!iO 

IJn'weries 10 51 ,040 

Carpets 7,050 

Yai-n and hosierv 40,74(> 

Paur ■. . 12,012 

Cements 22,500 

illats and caps 8,350 

Brooms 18,052 

Soap , glue, etc !),457 

Brushes «,«00 

Willow-ware 20,875 

Straw braid 4,205 

Artificial tlowers 3,380 

Charcoal ^,''74 tons. 132,837 

Coke 2,070 " 02,100 

Coal :'',!>00 " 9,750 

Salt ' 3,3S2 " 18,388 

Ice 4,000 " 17,700 

Fire bHck 41 500 " 807 

Total value $3,831 ,817 

The product of silver-lead mining for 1875, which does not api)car in 
above table, was f2, 708, 000, making a total of $0,539,817. Exclusive of 
manufactured products, the value of mechanical labor for 1875 was returned 
at .$3,715,000. But as such a return is somewhat indefinite, no account is 
made of it here. 



MANUFACTURES, ETC. 39 

Since 1875 some branches of manufacture have increased, as for example, 
hat of base and fine bullion ; of leather, boots and shoes, harness and sad- 
dlery. Probably the manufacture of lumber and of flour is about the same 
as then. 'J he yearly product of the Provo woolen mill is valued at $150,000. 
It has 2,880 spindles, and runs nine or ten months in twelve. All the other 
woolen mills in the Territory have together 2,530 spindles, including 360 
cotton spindles in the Rio Virgen mill, and tiiey run, take them together, 
about half the time. The total product is valued at $250,000 yearly, one-half 
•of their capacity, one-eighth of the Utah consumption of sucli fabrics, and 
they use about one-fourth of the wool-clip of the Territory. 

While there is the freight on crude wool eastward, and on the goods 
westward, in favor of the Utah manufacturer, it may be asked why these mills 
do not at least work up to their capacity. Doubtless the business lacks capital 
to carry sufficient stock, and needs systematizing and classifying. The 
Provo mill, for example, makes cassimeres, flannels, linseys, shawls, blankets, 
jeans, yarns, and some carpets, requiring different classes of wool, and in 
some cases, of machinery. The quality of work turned out under such cir- 
cumstances, as well as the facilities for doing it, will naturally be inferior to 
what they would be were the mills each run on a specal line of goods, as of 
cassimeres, or flannels, or linseys, using the material and machinery best 
adapted to it and that only. The combing and spinning machinery of the 
Utah mills is in general the best of its kind, but this cannot be said so un- 
reservedly of the looms. There would seem to be a good opening in this 
business for capital and skill. With a wool clip rapidly approaching 2,000,- 
•000 pounds a year; with an annual consumption of woolen fabrics amount- 
ing to if 2, 000, 000; and with the freight tariff east on crude wool and west on 
woolen goods as a guaranteed proflt, the inducement appears to be ample. 

The tan barks cost about $5 a cord in sections where they are native. 
They could not be furnished in Utah for less than $35. So the extracts of 
■chestnut, oak and hemlock barks, and of sumac leaves, are imported for tan- 
ning purposes. Some of the pine barks of Utah are used. Under these dis- 
advantages it is not strai^e that no more than $70,000 is invested in the 
business in Utah; or that Utah leather, while comparing favorably with Cali- 
fornia leather, is inferior to the Eastern article. There are twent.v-five to 
thirty tanneries, and the value of their yearly product is carefully estimated 
^t from $150,000 to $200,000. The business may be said to be growing 
gradually, both as to quantity and quality of product. But it can hardly 
become of great importance while tanning materials have to be imported. 
There is little doubt, however, that boots and shoes can be profitably manu- 
factured in Utah from imported leather. There are twenty-five to thirty 
boot and shoe factories in the Territory, employing from 250 to 300 hands, 
and turning out yearly $250,000 worth of boots and shoes. About six of 
these factories have machinery. Custom work, exclusive of repairing, may 
amount to $25,000 more. About one million dollars worth of boots and 
shoes is annually sold in Utah, three-fourths of which, as will be seen, are 
imported. At the same time Utah is shipping away 100 car loads of hides 
and pelts a year, worth, in Salt Lake, $200,000, ample in amount to supply 
the entire demand of the Territory for boots and shoes. Probably $80,000 



/ 



40 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

is invested in the business. Tlie value of tlie liarness and saddlery annually 
made in the Territory, including the hardware used, is roughly estimated at 
$150,000. This includes cost of material, which is chiefly imported, Utah 
leather, although used to some extent, not answering the purpose. 

About $50,000 is invested in foundries and machine shops in Utah, the 
leading ostal)lishments being in Salt Lake City, and the yearly value of their 
products in the neighborhood of .$100,000. They are well provided with the 
requisite tools, and can and do dujilicate any kind of machinery in use in the 
Territory exclusive of railroad machinery and engines of more than 100-horse 
power. Their work is largely repairing, and although the big silver mills 
are generally made abroad, there is very little of their machinery that these 
shops have not duplicated. For their line of work existing facilities may be 
said to be quite equal to the demand upon them. There is a small foundry 
and machine shop at Logan. 

There arc probably more saw-mills in Utah than in 187.5, when 128 were 
retui'ued, but it is doubtful if they cut out any more lumber, say 20,000,000 
feet, worth .$100,000. The value of imported lumber, rougli and manufac- 
tured, is estimated at .$150,000 j'early. The annual product of the Utah plan- 
ing mills, flooring, rustic, moulding, doors, sash, blinds, frames, and brack- 
ets, is estimated at $75,000, including the value of the rough lumber, about half 
of which, flooring and part of the rustic, is imported. There are ten or 
twelve furniture factories, most of them on a small scale, turning out, yearly, 
$100,000 worth of furniture and upholstering, new work, the wood and other 
materials for the best of it being imported. Made-up furniture, inclusive of 
freights to the value of perhaps $105,000, is annually imported. Wagons 
were manufactured to a considerable extent formerly, but the business has 
nearly ceased on account of the close competition between dealers in 
Eastern-made wagons. All the materials have to be imported, and since the 
freight on the stock is the same as that on the wagons, there is no protection 
for the Utah manufacturer save the middle-man's commission, and that is 
offset [by want of capital to fiirnish facilities, and the higher price of labor. 
The product of the mills and smelters, fine and bate bullion, which is a man- 
ufacture as much as flour or lumber, has more than doubled since 1875, hav- 
ing averaged $6,000,000 a year for the last three years. In 1875 it was about 
$2,700,000. The manufacture of charcoal, brick and fire-brick, salt, earthen- 
ware, lime, cements, paper, brooms, brushes, beer, cigars, hats and caps,. 
"Willow-ware, artificial flowers, candles, soaps, glue, etc., has increased since ' 
lS75, as a rule, although there are no data for exact statements. On the 
whole, if the product of manufactures for 1875 was $0,500,000, for 1878 it is 
probably safe to put it at $10,000,000. 

OFF OB TUNITIES. 

There is not much to be said in favor of manufacturing in a new country, 
unless from materials native to it. Utah is as poor in valuable woods as it is 
rich in climate, soil, water power, and minerals; while the treasures of the 
last three are as inexhaustible as the pleasures of the first Below are indi- 
cated certain branches of manufacturing industry which it is believed offer 
inducements to engage in them. It should be borne in mind that there is in. 



MANUFACTURES, ETC. 41 

some cases the cost of carriage both waj-.s, out and back, ami always one way 
iu favor of the Utah manufacturer; and that there is no limit to the water 
power running to waste in a score of mountain canons, if one will only go to 
it. Also, on the other hand, that much depends on the coking qualities of 
the Utah coals. It may, perhaps, be conceded that coke is made from some 
of them of sufficient consistency to bear the charges in the lead smelters, but 
not, as yet, to bear the weight of the charges in pig iron smelting. But the 
coal fields are of great extent, they have been but islightly examined, and beds 
that will respond to the utmost that can be asked in a coking coal may be 
found as well in Utah as iu Colorado. The difference between coals is one 
of age and pressure under the application of heat. Coal of later age than 
the true coal formation may make the best of coke, as is experimentally 
proved by its occurrence at Trinidad, in Colorado. No doubt the supply will 
ultimately respond to the demand. In Utah's broken up coal fields it would 
be curious if somewhere the beds have not been subjected to sufficient pres- 
sure to make a good coking coal. 

With the proper fuel, it is believed that the country west of the Missouri 
Elver does not afford a field for the manufacture of iron at all comparable to 
that lying unoccupied in Utah. 'A great vai'iety of rich and remarkably pure 
iron ores, in proximity to the requisite fluxes; cheap labor, provisions, and 
supplies ; a central location and ample railroad inter-communication ; a cli- 
mate never interfering with operations in the open air; a large demand; and 
a freight tariff of from .$20 to $40 a ton for the manufacturer's protection ; 
or if he must ship it away to find a market, to pay the cost of shipment. The 
idea is that the materials and facilities are such as to justify the enterprise 
on a large scale, not the manufacture of pigs solely, but of all kinds of mer- 
chant and railroad iron and steel, and of all railroad, mill, mining and smelt- 
ing machinery. Under the circumstances it would) seem that at least one per 
cent of the one hundred millions invested in the iron business in the E.ist 
might be profitably transferred to Utah. 

Metallurgical works equal in capacity and variety of appliances to any in 
the world, should be established in Salt Lake Valley. Ores from adjoining 
Territories now find their way in considerable quantity to the Salt Lake 
market. All ores not yielding readily to the lead smelting process emplo}'ed 
here are rejected, and nothing is saved in the treatment but gold, lead, and 
silver, with sometimes a trifle of copper. With an establishment possessing 
the skill and means needed to separate all of the metals from their gangues 
and bases, whether chemically or mechanically combined therewith, or with 
each other, an incalculable stimulus would be given to mining. Probably 
four-fifths of the ores of this whole region are neglected entirely, for want 
of the capital and skill to make any profitable use of them. Labor and 
materials may be cheaper in Europe, and Swansea may be from its seaside 
location the ore-reducing market of the round world. But our ores are far 
richer in metals as a rule than those of Europe, and the Rocky Mountains, 
easily accessible from Salt Lake Valley, are capable of producing more and' 
more various ores, if put to the test, than all the world beside has been in- 
the habit of furnishing. There can be no question as to the possible supply^ 
of ores or as to their variety and richness. 



42 TFIK RKSOURCES OF UTAH. 

In connection ■nitli works for the treatment of ores there should be 
' establisliments for tlie manufacture of (lru<j;s and chemicals, oils, paints, and 
all the artilicial products of lead, beside the relining of lead itself, and the 
making of pig and sheet lead, shot, lead pipe, etc. The materials for almost 
everything in this line are here in profusion. As a writer who had tra- 
versed Utah with aa observant eye has said: "The entire basin is a vast 
laboratory of nature, where all the primitive processes have been carried 
out on a scale so vast as to make man's dominion, at first sight, seem for- 
ever impossible." We now send our crude lead bullion East, and bring 
back pig and sheet lead, lead pipe, white and red lead, and Venice white, 
instead of refining and manufacturing here and thus saving one if not two 
freight charges across the continent, and such freight charges, swallowing 
up one-third the value of the product. Even blue-stone, used in amalga- 
mating silver, is imported, with millions of tons of sulphur in sight, and the 
hills full of copper ores. And this is the practice in everything. 

All the products of our fine clays and silicious sands — pottery, fire-brick, 
glass; of our marble and slate beds— roofing, sink bottoms, table and 
^bureau tops, mantle-pieces, billiard tables, might be made here as well as 
-elsewhere and brought here. It has been s\iown that the manufacture of 
leather, boots and shoes, harness and saddlery, is by no means overdone ; 
while in the working up of our wool crop there is ample room and encourage- 
ment. As with lead bullion, the vicious habit prevails of sending our hides 
■and wools abroad to be manufactured and returned, involving paj'ment for 
two carriages across country when any carriage at all is superfluous. A 
start has been made in the manufacture of paper, but the single mill in 
operation makes only about one-tenth of the amount used. Some attention 
lias been given to silk-i-aising, and silk-spinning machinery is beginning to 
be inti-oduced. The worms and the mulberry trees both seem to do well in 
Utah, and there is no apparent reason why silk-raising and manufacture 
should not grow into an important industry. Some of these branches of 
manufactures may appear to be small matters ; but it is a new country, and 
they are the beginnings of a larger growth. The scientific treatment of ores, 
howeve?;, and the manufacture of chemicals, paints, pottery, glass, lead, 
iron, copper, and woolen fabrics are believed to offer fair inducements to 
the skillful and enterprising investor. 



RAILROADS AND TRANSPORTATION. 43 



CHAPTER VII. 

RAILROADS AND TRANSPORTATION. 

The settlements of Utah occupy a belt from ten to tifty miles in width in 
Talleys on the western slope and at the base of tl\e Wasatch Range, extend- 
ing the entire length of the Territory from Franklin on tlie north to St. 
George on the south. There is what is called the State Road running 
through the principal settlements from Salt Lake City to St. George, and it 
i* continued, though not under that name, from Salt Lake City northward to 
'Soda Springs, in Idaho. Off from this lead the roads to the side valleys, 
tlirough the canons, as through Logan Canon into Bear Lake Valley; up the 
'\Vel)er, through Morgan, into Summit, and thence down Parley's Canon, or 
Die Provo River, into Salt Lake Valley again; up Ogden River through Hunts- 
ville and on over rolling country Into Cache or Bear Lake valleys; up Nephi 
Canon into San Pete County, down the Saupitch to the Sevier, and up and 
down that river its whole length; and westward from Salt Lake City via the 
old overland stage route through Tooele and Skull valleys to Deep Creek, to 
Eureka, Austin and Carson, in Nevada, The country generally offers no ob- 
structions to road making by simply driving in one-track except in the 
canons. On many of the streams, even in the mountains, but little work is 
needed to make delightful carriage roads. In those canons offering no 
jjasses over or through into other valleys watered by different streams, pen- 
etrated solely for timber or mines, the roads are rough and steep, and it is 
only by much labor that they were made or are kept passable. While in 
many places the country roads are hard and usually pleasant, as a rule they 
are, from the nature of the soil, very muddy in wet, and very dusty in dry 
weather. Thei*e were returned in 1875, 544 miles of territorial ro;id, 2,364 
miles of county road, 6,toll-roads, and 18 bridges, costing $1,000 or more. 

Bailroads. — ^This system of intercommunication by wagon roads is being 
rapidly superseded by a railroad system, whose general featui'es consist of a 
.main north-and- south road through the settlements from^end to end of the 
Territory, and continuing on until they intersect the northern and southern 
trans-continental roads, or find the ocean independently, with branches, 
:generally narrow gauge, into the mining canons and coal fields. There is a 
•bad break in this system at Ogden consequent upon the road northward from 
that point having adopted a narrower than the standard gauge. There is 
ilittle doubt that this was a mistake which will ultimately have to be rectified. 

There were, at the end of 1878, including the Union Pacific and Central 
Pacific track in Utah, about 340 miles of standard guage, 190 of narrow 
gauge, 15 miles of iron tramway, and 8 or 10 miles of street railway in Utah, 
and 961 miles of telegraph lines. Three Utah roads have already laid more 
than 100 miles of track this season, 30 miles of it in Idaho, however, and are 



44 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

still extendlni!; their Hues as will be seen below. By next autumn, the main 
north-and-south line of Utah will certainly be completed from Milford, on 
the Beaver River, to the Montana line, 525 miles, 305 miles in Utah, the rest 
in Idaho. Of branch lines there is every prospect that 70 miles will be con- 
structed in Utah, in 187!), connecting the San Pete coaltields with the Utah 
Southern. Every part of the Territory, save the extreme south, will then 
be fairly accessible by rail, and that will not have to wait much longer. 

Trans-Continental. — To come to details: The main continental railroad 
between the two oceans traverses the entire breadth of the northern part of 
the Territory, the two roads constituting the line joining tracks at Ogden. 
Of the Union Pacilic al)out 78 miles, of the Central Pacilic 151 miles of track 
are within the boundaries of the Territory. These roads afford the only 
means of access to Utah. First-class fare from Omaha to Ogden is .$77.50; 
second-class, $00; emigrant, #40; children under five years of age, free; 
under 12 years, half-fare; 100 lbs., of baggage free on each full, and fifty 
pounds on each half ticket, of all classes; extra baggage, $10 to §15 per lOfr 
lbs., according to class. First-class fare from San P'rancisco to Ogden is 
$53, special fare, $48. Both roads run sleeping cars, nicely arranged and 
kept for comfort; cost of double berth from Omaha to Ogden, .$8; from San 
Francisco to Ogden, $G; but only tirst-class passengers are admitted to 
sleeping cars, or have stop-over privileges. 

Utah & Northern. — The Utah & Northern is a protege of the Union Pacific. 
It is narrow gauge, starts north from Ogden, runs along the base of the Wa- 
satch about 45 milef, crosses a low summit into Cache Valley, strikes 
across eastward to Logan, then north to Franklin, just over the Idaho line; 
thence it escapes via Marsh Creek, and descends the Portneuf to Snake River. 
It is now completed to the Iilagle Rock crossing of the Snake River, about 200 
miles from Ogden, and will doubtless be continued northward into JNIoutana, 
and northwestward through Idaho to the mouth of the Columbia. The road 
was started to accommodate the local settlements rather than as a through 
line; hence its comparative indirectness and the width of the gauge. It is 
the only means of access to Northern Utah and Southern Idaho, the sands of 
whose principal river for 200 miles in length contain gold enough to make 
placer mining profitable. Snake River Valley and the rich silver mines on 
the heads of Salmon River are at present the attraction which fills the eye of 
the roving prospectors for mines, and the Utah & Northern is sure of a pros- 
perous future. About eighty miles of it are in Utah, and it will be a Utah 
road still when it shall have reached the Pacific with its left, and the Sas- 
katchawan with its right arm. 

Utah Central. — The Utah Central extends southward through Kaysville,. 
Farmington, Centreville, and Bountiful, to Salt Lake City, 37 miles. The 
land along the route is good, and where it can be watered, well tilled. The 
towns are largely embowered in trees. On the one hand is the Great Salt 
Lake, with its desolate islands and lifeless waters, full, somehow, of mystery 
in spite of all learned explanations. On the other the Wasatch Mountains, 
rising abruptly to the region of cloud and storm, ever changing in form and 
outline as one passes by ; varying shade and light and hue, gorge and crag 



RAILROADS AND TRANSPORTATION. 45 

and cliff and towering peak, rapidl_v succeeding each other. But it is idle to 
attempt to analyze the perpetual fascination of this combination of lake and 
mountain, orchard, town, anc* garden. Four trains are run each way daily, 
half of them passenger trains, and the fare is two dollars. The road carried 
117,000 tons of freight in 1878. It is stocked and bonded at $2,500,000, and 
earns $10,000 to 012,000 a mile. It has always earned and paid six per cent 
on its bonds and 12 on its stock since it was built. It was the pioneer of the 
Utah roads, and like its successors, was built without otlier gift or grant 
than right of way over and use of materials from the public lauds. Its flnau- 
cial success has been among the greatest inducements to its extension south- 
ward, and that was chiefly due to the carrying demands of the mining indus- 
try. It is the Horn Silver Mine that is di'awing it 150 miles further south 
this season. 

Utah Southern. — This road runs south from Salt Lake City. Upon the 
opening of spring its terminus was at York, and that is still its business ter- 
minus. But it will be moved to Chicken Creek, 105 miles from Salt Lake 
City in June, and the construction of the Utah Southern Extension, between 
that point and the Frisco Silver Mines, will allow of its being carried 100 
to 120 miles further before next winter. Not far beyond Chicken Creek the ' 
route passes out on to the desert through Sevier Pass, leaving the line of 
settlements to the eastward. The Utah Southern is probably more lightly 
stocked and bonded than any other railroad of the standard gauge in the 
world. Its capital stock is ^20,000 per mile, and its bonded indebtedness 
the sftme. In 1878 it carried 108,000 tons of freiglit, but most of it was be- 
tween Salt Lake City and Sandy, 13 miles ; too short a haul to yield a very 
lucrative income. It runs one through train each way, daily, and two beside 
as far as Sandy. Following are stations, distances, and fares from Salt Lake 
City, namely : 

Stutious, Distance. Fare. 

Little Cottonwood 7 miles. § .50 

Junction 12 " .75 

Sandy 13 " 1.00 

Praper 17 " 1.25 

Lehi 31 " 1.75 

American Fork 3-4 " 1.90 

Pleasant Grove 37 " 2.00 

Provo 48 " 2.50 

Springville 53 " 2.75 

Spanish Fork ' 58 " 3.50 

Payson (^<j " 3.50 

Santaquin "^1 " 4.00 

York 75 " 4.00 

The 105 miles of this road, with the 127 cf the extension, and the 37 of 
the Utah Central, make a line of standard gauge road south from Ogden 
about 2G0 miles long, all an adopted if not a natural child of the Union Pa- 
cific, and one of its most important feeders. Joliu Sharp is superintendent 
with headquarters at Salt Lake City. 

Canon i^oacJs.— Striking off south-westward from the Utah Southern at 
Junction, the second station from Salt Lake City, is the narrow gauge 
Bingliara Canon & Camp Floyd Railroad, sixteen miles long, with eight miles 
of iron tramway extending to the dumps of the more important Bingham 



46 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

Canon mines. The earnings of tliis road vary witli the lliictuations of busi- 
ness in tlie Blnjiliam Canon mining distrk-t, but they have averaued the last 
four years nearly $120,000 a year. 

The. Wasatch & Jordan Valley road starts eastward from Sandy, the next 
station, and reachinjj: the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canon in seven miles, 
is exteudetl to the mines by means of a closely shedded iron tramway of 
equal leuLi;th, the canon having too heavy a grade for locomotives. The 
road is a narrow gauge, and has earned an average of nearly .? 100,000 a year 
for the last live years. Its business necessarily depends on the productive- 
ness of the Little Cottonwood mines, and great as that has been in the past 
it bids fair to be exceeded in the future. 

The next one of these narrow gauge mountain roads intersects the Utah 
Southern at Springville, and runs eastwartl. It is called Utah & Pleasant 
Valley, is designed to tap the Pleasant Valley coal field, and will be fifty-two 
miles long. Its route is via Spanish Fork Canon. About tliir;y miles of 
track has been laid, and the whole is to be finished by mid-summer. Unlike 
the last two, this road has a further possible extension before it, either into 
Castle Valley and on south, or eastward through the country drained by the 
affluents of the Colorado toward the head of the Arkansas near Leadville. 

Still another narrow gauge road is to leave the Utah Southern at Nephi, 
and proceed southeastward via Salt Creek or Nephi Canon into San Pete 
county and down the Sanpitch to the coal mines at Wales, twenty-seven , 
miles. The grade through the canon is mainly constructed, and a completed 
road to Wales is promised this year. It will naturally be extended iii time 
to the Sevier and through Saliua Canon into Castle Valley, and perhaps 
eastward to a connection with the Eastern railroad system, which is 
gradually surmounting the Sierra Madre, and must ultimately find a way 
into this basin on the line of the 3i)th parallel. 

With this system of feeders, and the wonderful iron ores of Iron County 
to draw its main line still further southward, the Utah Southern promises to 
be one of the best railroad properties of the country, and on the other hand 
to furnish means of access to a section extraordinarily rich in undeveloped 
mineral resources, which has long awaited the electrifying touch of the iron 
rail. The ultimate destination of this road is undoubtedly an intersection 
with the Southern Pacific at some point in Arizona, and there is a practicable 
route across the Colorado via the Grand Wash below St. George. At the 
same time there are mineral districts to the v/estward that might justify the 
construction of a branch through southern Nevaila and California to the 
ocean as an independent outlet. The great movements of peoples and trade 
may be mainly round the world, and in the northern temperate zone, but 
there is nevertheless a large trade between the zones, so different in their 
products. In the East and on other continents natural channels for the 
latter are found in navigable rivers flowing from northern mountains into 
southern oceans. There is none such in the vast region, comprising four 
million square miles, between St. Louis and the Pacific Ocean. The topo- 
graphy of this section permits the construction of two north-and-south rail- 
roads, answering, so far as railroads may, to navigable rivers in other 
countries. One is at the eastern base of the liocky Mountains, and is 



EAILROADS AND TRANSPORTATION. 47 

already constructed from Cheyenne to the Cimarron ; the other is through 
the cliaiu of valleys forming a trough-like depression .in the heart of the 
Kocky Mountains from Fort Benton to Arizona, of which Salt Lake is the 
most important, affording together, although higher than the Allcghanies, , 
every needed facility for the construction of a road, crossing at right angles 
or intersecting all the trans-continental lines, including the Canada Pacilic; 
and, perhaps, as well independent outlets to the ocean both on the northwest 
and southwest. It needs but a full view of the Rocky Mountain railroad 
system when completed to make vivid the importance of the tirst beginnings 
of Utah's part in it. 

So far as our immediate wants are concerned, it may be thought that 
they will be amply supplied by the completion of the southern line to St. 
George or the Colorado, and the construction of branches into all the mining 
canons and iron and coal fields. That is a consummation not only devoutly 
to be wished, but soon likely to be. We ought, however, to have an- 
other trans-continental line, nearer than either the Northern or Southern 
Pacific; and we confidently look to some of the Colorado roads, now 
climbing the Sierra Madre, to furnish it. The valley of the Arkansas 
undoubtedly presents the most favorable route, the summit between 
its waters and those of the Grand being the lowest in the range and with 
easy approaches. Once in the valley of the Grand it is believed a feasible 
route can be found through a section capable of furnishing a good local 
traffic, branching as it approaches the Wasatch on the right towards Spanish 
Fork Canon, on the left towards Salina. The latter branch would penetrate 
the southern part of this Territory dii%ct; the former would reach Salt Lake 
City. Westward there is a feasible route through White Pine, Eureka, 
Lander, Nye and Esmeralda counties, Nevada, which produced $8,875,000 
royal metals and lead, in the year ending June 30, 1878, to Cerro Gordo, and 
thence to the seaboard, threading twenty important raining districts lying 
about 100 miles south of the Central Pacific. This route would be in the 
vicinity of the 30th parallel, and it is mentioned here in the liope of drawino- 
attention to it. \ 

Returning now to S;ilt Lake City, we have the narrow guage Utah Western 
projected to rundown through the mining districts in the western belt of 
the Territory to Pioche, in Nevada. Its route is due west along the southern 
shore of Salt Lake to Lake Point, where it turns southward, through Tooele, 
Rush, and Tintic valleys. About 40 miles only are completed. It is greatly 
thronged during the bathing season, when it runs cheap trains to Lake Point 
and the city daily empties itself into Salt Lake. 

Lastly, tliere is the 8-mile narrow guage road between Coalville and Echo, 
on the Union Pacific, which it would pay to replace at once by a broad 
gauge, thus making it a spur of the Union Pacific and probably quadrupling 
the production of the Coalville mines. Having to transfer for so short a 
haul keeps the district back. 

Excellent stage lines connect wiih these roads on the north and south, 
penetrating to the borders of Arizona on one hand, and to the heart of Mon- 
tana and Idaho on the other. There is also a stage line between Salt Lake 



48 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

City and Park City, but the palmy days of stage coaching iu the vast intei'ior 
arc nearly over. The express business is divided by the Union racitic and 
Wells, Fargo & Co.'s PLxpress Companies, the former running on all the rail- 
roads, and eastward from Ogden on the Union racitic; the latter llnding a 
contracted held in Southern Utali, reached by stage coach from southeastern 
Nevada, and running westward from Ogden on the Central Tacilic Railroad. 



CHAPTER VIII 

T R A D E A X U COM M E R C E . 

In the years preceding the completion of the Pacific Railroads, tlie im- 
ports of Utah, according to the most careful estimate possible, were between 
10,000 and 12,000 tons per annum. The exports were almost nothing. The 
overland emigration, the stage lines, and the troops, bought the farmer's 
grain and surplus stocjc, and these were almost the only cash resources of 
the Territory. The railroad, constructed both from the East and the West, 
joined tracks on Promontory Summit May 10, ISli'J, and the same year the 
Utah Central was built from Ogden to Salt Lake City, connecting the capital 
of Utah with the traus-coutineutiil railroad line. The second year thereafter, 
the exports and imports of the Territory, as indicated by the books of the 
Utah Central Railroad Company, were 80,000 tons, a seven-fold increase. 
This calculation assumes that 15 per cent of the imports and exports of the 
Territory, including live or six of the northern counties, does not centre at 
Salt Lake City, and would not appear in the tonnage of the Utah Central 
Railroad. In 1872 they were U0,000 tons, nearly one-fourth of which was 
exports, chiefly ores and bullion. In 1873 they were nearly 100,000 tons. 
The business collapse of the autumn of that year was felt in Utah in 1874 and 
1875, and business fell off somewhat. But iu 1876 it again touched the high 
water mark of 1873. The decline in the price of lead caused a serious depres- 
sion iu the silver-lead producing industry of the Territory in the last two 
years, affecting the production, reducing the amount of fuel imported, and 
of bullion and ores exported. The importation of merchandise has been 
quite steady, however, and assuming that only 85 per cent of it is received 
at Salt Lake City, it averaged about 17-,000 tons per annum from 1871 to 1878 
inclusive. 

niPOETS AND EXFOIiTS. 

The freight carried iu and out of the Territory by the Utah Central Rail- 
road during the last eight years was 968,150 tons; adding 15 per cent for the 
northern part of the Territory, there were 1,113,264 tons, a yearly average of 
139,156 tons. Of this total about two-thirds was imports, one-third exports. 
Assuming that 5,000 tons of coal have been yearly received at Ogden, and 
that 15,000 tons of the coal received at Salt Lake City have been annually 



TRADE AND COMMERCE. 49 

used for domestic purposes, about 540,000 tons of this carriage was directly 
incidental to mining and smelting, as follows: 

Coal 244,378 tons 

Coke 40,313 

Charcoal 40, 211 

Bullion 100, 27() 

Lead ores 75,434 

Lead 8,197 

Iron ore, (flux) 16,050 



Total 539,859 " 

\ 
Of the rest the largest items were : 

Merchandise 13(5,461 tons. 

Building material 11,650 " 

Lumber 74,482 " 

Railroad material 25,000 " 

Produce 45,274 " 

Leaving for sundries, including wagons, machinery, live stock, wool, hides, 
dried fruit, salt, ha}', etc., 160,538 tons. 

The iron ore was in part from above Willard, in Utah; in part from Wy- 
oming. It is all derived from Utah deposits, chiefly at Tiutic, now. The 
item of cod includes 5,000 to 10,000 tons a year from Coalville, in Utah. 
The charcoal was imported from the heads of Bear River, in Wyoming, and 
doubtless will always have to be more or less, although a good deal has come 
out of American Fork Canon, and the Utah & Pleasant Valley Railroad will give 
access to a vast area of wooded land, some of it excellent saw timber, on the 
heads of Spanish Fork. The Territory will always have to import its hard 
and finishing woods, but in this respect it is no worse off than the entire 
prairie and mountain parts of the country including the Pacific Coast. It 
must also expect to always import, more or less, its lumber, sash, doors, 
blinds, wagons, agricultural implements and furniture, for not only does it 
lack the hard and finishing woods of native growth, the best quality of clear 
lumber cannot be cut out of native timber. The importation of produce is 
noticeably large. It includes corn, to the growth of which the climate is 
not adapted ; oats, some other grains, and seeds; fruits and vegetables from 
California (out of season;) and probably oysters, salmon, and shell fish. 
The item of live stock embraces livery horses, and blooded horned stock, 
blooded bucks and swine. The making of leather, or at least of its products, 
maj' be expected to increase, as also the manufacture of home-grown wool, 
and the importations of these kinds of merchandise to correspondingly 
diminish. Our machinej'y is largely made here, exclusive of new silver mills, 
engines of more than 100-horse power, agricultural and railroad machinery. 
There is no data upon which to strike an accurate balance sheet, but the 
following is not far out of the way : 

IMP0BT8. 

Books, stationery, paper, music, musical instruments !$155,340 

Clothing, furnishing, hats, caps, carpets, oil cloths 665,301 

Cigars, tobaccos, wines, spirituous and malt liquors 512,381 

Crockery, glassware, watches, clocks, jewelry 202,068 



rO TIIK KKKOlKCluS OF LTAH. 

Dry goods, niilliiierj', fancy f;oo(1s, notions l,4r)0,287 

l)iii;:.s, clKiniciils, ));iinls, oils, pliotographer's materials i!6!>,!t2(; 

liroccrics, provisions, canned goods, confectionery 1 ,77!i,(i;$l 

Hardware, stoves, gas fixings, rubber goods, rope, powder, fuse, )S0l,2('il 

lA^allier, boots, shoes, harness, saddlery, belling. . 41)8,420 

Varieties, sewing machines, brewer's materials, marble, guns. . . . 84,(i26 

Grain, feed, fruits, vegetables, seeds, salmon, oysters. . . 85,<>54 

Lnmber, sash, doors, blinds, furniture, upholstery 250,500 

Wagots, agricultural implements, stock of same 73(5,207 

Coal, coke, charcoal, live stock, machinery, sundries 700,000 

Total 88,21 1 ,002 

EXI'OIITS. 

Silver, lead, gold, copper matte (average last three years) .$•!, 000,000 

Wheat, flour, barley, seeds, dried fruit 15'J,535 

Live stock and slaughtered beef 045,024 

Wool, hides, pelts, tallow, furs and skins 402,780 

Eggs, butter, poultry, green fruits and vegetables 305,058 

Sundries, lire brick, beer, hauled out by peddlers, (est.) 75,000 

Balance 503,005 

Total §8, 211,002 

It is not to be supposed that we do not on the whole export more than 
we import. Otherwise we sliould steadily run behind, which we do not. 
At least one-fourth of the wagons and agricultural implements are sold in 
the Territories north, or cast and west, and ihis is the case probably with 
five to ten per cent of the merchandise imported, lu arriving at the value 
of the latter, as above given, returns were solicited and procured from 
nearly 200 persons and firms, including all the heavier houses engaged in 
trade in the Territory, of the value of their imports and exports, severally, 
for calendar year 1878. Most of them were made up from invoices, a few 
were estimated from sales. 

The Ilctail Trade — Money in Trade — Failures — Co-operative Stores. — It is 
assumed that the amount of business done by jobbers and retailers, annuall)', 
would be fairly represented by adding 20 per cent to above total of imports 
—$9,853,202. There are doubtless $3,000,000 to $4,000,000 engaged in the 
business. No merchants stand higher in the East on the score of credit 
than those of Utah. Not that they are more upright than other merchants, 
but from the situation and circumstances a larger percentage of cash than 
usual is employed in doing the same amount of business. Some of the 
heavier houses pay cash down altogether. Probably the mean time on all 
soods bought by Utah buyers would but little more than double that required 
for them to make the trip out, say GO days; and 20 per cent of their value, 
delivered, is freight charges, always paid in cash on delivery. There have 
been but 20 failures, with aggregate liabilities of $512,000, in the last three 
years, and these were not felt abroad. A good many houses import in a 
small way, but the weight of the business with the outside is done by a very 
few houses, which have ample capital and do not require credit. One of 
the heaviest of these is Ziou's Co-operative Mercantile Institution, of Salt 
Lake City, which, with its branch houses at Ogden and Logan, imports one- 



TUADE AXD COMMERCE. 51 

third of all the merchandise used in the Territory. It has 800 stockholders 
and a paid-in capital of $750,000. There is a similar thoush smaller institu- 
tion in nearly every town in Utah, most of them buying their stocks of the 
big institution at the capital, and selling to it the country produce they take 
in exchange for goods. They were organized about 10 years ago, and every- 
body able to earn or buy a share of stock was taken in. Their anxiety to 
earn and disburse big dividends has created opposition in some places; and 
in others the larger owners in the start have become almost the sole owners. 
These co-operative stores, as they are called, with probably 10,000 stock- 
holders, number at least three-fourths of the people among their patrons; 
yet, curious as it may seem, they do less than one-half the mercantile busi- 
ness of the Territory. 

INSURANCE— BAXKINa—RAILEOAD INDEBTEDNESS. 

About 50 insurance companies carry |300,000 worth of insurance on stores 
in Salt Lake City and Ogden, and $1,100,000 worth on merchandise in stock, 
which is believed to represent one-half the value of the goods insured in the, 
two cities, and three-fourths of the value of all the goods in stock in the Ter- 
ritory on the average. The banking business of Utah is done by 11 commer- 
cial banks, one national, and 10 private banks. Their aggregate paid-in cap- 
ital is $750,000; average deposits $1,150,000; average loans $1,000,000; 
amount of exchange drawn, perhaps $12,000,000 to $15,000,000 annually. 
About $350,000 of Eastern money is loaned in the Territory on real estate, 
bonds, etc., at 12, 15, and 18 per cent. About one-fourth of the money en- 
gaged in banking is from abroad, too. 

The bonded indebtedness of the Utah railroads, including the lines in 
process of construction and to be completed this season, is in the neighbor- 
hood of $7,500,000, of which $1,500,000 is or will be held in Utah. Of Utah 
Central stock, worth par (paying 12 per cent) $800,000 is owned in Utah. 
Of Utah Southern^ stock, worth 30 cents, $600,000 (nominal) is held in 
Utah. Utah Central and Utah Southern bonds are nearly at par; Utah 
Northern, 85; Bingham Canon and Wasatch roads, 75. The Utah & Pleas- 
ant Valley are held at 50; and the bonds of the Utah Southern P^xtension are 
to be Issued to stockholders at a figure representing the cost of construc- 
tion, say 65. All the railroad bonds bear six or seven per cent interest. No- 
where are the people burdened with debts on account of railroad construc- 
tion, and the existing revenue law of the Territory, while not all that it 
should be, perhaps, is regarded as among the most liberal in its provisions 
of those of any of the States or Territories. 

ENLARGEMENT OF BUSINESS AXD TRADE. 

Heretofore the trade of Utah has been largely confined within ilself, 
but that is rapidly changing. Its central location and its fine climate have 
always made it more or less the headquarters of the mountain people. This 
tendency is on the increase. Our citizens are beginning to wake up to the 
natural advantages of their position: in the centre of the only habitable 
transverse belt of mountains, moderate in altitude, with a delightful and salu- 
brious climate, full of rich valleys easily watered, and of mineral mountains 



52 THE RESOURCES OF L'TAH. 

covered with timber, and affording limitless pasture and water power; giv- 
ing rise to a mixed industry, farming, stoclt-growinjr, fruit-raising, mining^ 
smelting, and manufacturing; tiie products being coal, iron, gold, silver, 
lead, the cereals, friats, and vegetables common to the latitude, butter,, 
cheese, and various manufactured articles; presenting the natural route of 
trade and commerce, containing already 200,000 people, and rapidly filling 
up. They are begiiniing to see the advantages in a commercial sense, of 
holding the key to such a country, and the tendency to grasp and improve 
them is growing. Our railroad system, as has been shown, is being rapidly 
extended, drawing after it into an ever widening field our capital, our trade, 
our manufactures, and business enterprise. Ogden, situated at the intersec- 
tion of the trans-continontal and transverse railroads, has a large trade along 
the lines of these thoroughfares ami in the sections they traverse, save on the 
south where Salt Lake City takes the business. There is little agriculture 
,or manufacturing save in this central trough-like depression in the mountains- 
between Nebraska and California, and the adjoining sections, east and west, 
chiefly mineral or grazing in resources, afford an ample market for Utah's 
products of all kinds, and a good fleld for the display of business enterprise 
and ability. Our citizens are more and more engaging in extensive business 
operations beyond the confines of Utah, such as mining, smelting, lumber- 
ing, and stock raising; and this naturally enlarges the scope of our commer- 
cial influence. Yearly our trade is finding new channels, and broadening and 
extending on every hand the theatre of its operations. All that is needed to 
give Utah unquestioned commercial pre-eminence among the rising young 
commonwealths of the mountains is a comprehensive view of the situatioa 
and a resolute grasping and improvement of the opportunities it presents. 

PUBLIC BUSIN'ESS. 

The receipts from Utah on account of U. S. Internal Racenue taxes have 
averaged $40,()70 a year for the sixteen years ending June w, 1878. For the 
last fiscal year the}' were $31,900. For the current fiscal year they will be 
$-i5,000. The expenses of the Internal Revenue office in Utah are $6,185 
per annum. No spirituous liquors are manufactured, nor any tobacco. 
About 10,000 barrels of malt liquors, and 450,000 cigars were made in 1878, 
worth, together, $150,000, and paying $12,700 revenue. Aside from these 
two items the bulk of the internal revenue receipts are from special taxe& 
(licenses) and taxes on the capital and deposits of banks. The tax of about 
$2,500 a year paid by the one national bank (Deseret) does not appear in 
above total. 

Salt Lake City Post Office. — The receipts of the post office at Salt Lake 
City for 1878, dropping the cents, were 119,821; expense of maintaining,. 
$11,492; profit, $8,329. The receipts of the money order department were 
$274,775; 24,805 registered packages were handled, and $25,374 worth of 
postage stamps cancelled. The total weight of mail matter dispatched was- 
115,144 pounds, including 722,540 letters and postal cards, and 84,305 pieces 
of second and third-class mail matter. The number of letters and postal 
cards delivered was s:^3,s44. 



TRADE AN'D C'OMMKRCE. 53 

Operations of the U. S. Land Office.— The U. S. Land Office at Salt Lake 
•City was opened in Marcli, 1869, and tlie following summary of its business 
thence to April 30, 1879, includes nearly all the lands in the Territory to 
•which the title has either passed out of the Goveruuient or been applied for. 
A U. S. Land Office was established at Beaver in 1875, but it was not much 
patronized and was soon closed. All moneys for sales, fees, or commis- 
sions are paid over in full to the United States. They are here included 
under the heading of receipts. 

Entries, Description of Number. Aores. Receipts. 

Homesteads 4^234 551,995 $ 61,G6'0 

Homestead Declarations, Soldiers' and Sailors' 8 16 

Homesteads, Final Proofs made 1,098 150,741 6,107 

Declaratory Statements for Pre-emptions 7,778 23,334 

Cash entries tliereunder 2,042 242,495 322 547 

Asricnltural College scrip entries 578 92',480 

Military Bounty Land Warrant Entries 145 23,200 

Chippewa Scrip Entries 5 4.00 

Sioux Scrip Entries 3 307 

Coal Land Declaratory Statements 306 918 

Coal Land Entries 10* 1,338 16,759 

Desert Land Declarations, first payment 362 79,219 19,805 

Einal Proofs made on Desert I/auds 16 2,340 2,340 

Applications for Patents for Mining Claims 488 4,880 

Protests filed on same 409 4 090 

Mineral Entries, Mining Claims 368 1,472 14^873 

Collected as Stumpage, etc 10,218 

Total receipts •. . . $487,547 

Title perfected, arable land, acres, total 512,023 

'■ coal land, " " 1*338 

" mines " " 1472 

Total acres entered, final proofs not made 814,'l33 

More than 1,326,000 acres of arable, pastoral, and desert lands, 324,000 of 
coal lands, and 1,950 of mines, have been applied for; and $487,547 have 
■been realized from the operations of the U. S. Land office in Utah. 

Public Land Surveys.— The total of public lands surveyed in Utah from 
1856 to the end of fiscal year 1878 was 8,178,816.97 acres. In the last year, 
259,936.32 acres were surveyed, of which 5,041.56 were coal lands; also 83 
claims for mining patents. Suppose all this to be arable land, it would still 
be less than one-tenth of the area of the Territory. Nine acres in ten of all 
the surface of Utah can never be made useful except for the timber naturally 
growing on it or the minerals that can profitably be dug out of it. 

Taxes and Taxable Property. — The sum total of taxable property in the 
Territory, as returned by county clerks to the Territorial Auditor, for 1877, 
was as lollows: 

•Counties. Assessed Value of Property. Territorial Tax. 

■Salt Lake $8,171,820 $20,429 25 

Weber 2,105,428 5,263 57 

^tah 2,083,904 5,209 76 

Box Elder 1,827,580 4,568 94 

'Cache 1,205,367 3,013 35 

■T<>oele 1,060,190 2,650 43 

Summit 868,536 2,171 30 



64 TilE HEteOlKCEK OF UTAIT. 

I 

Uavis t<12,132 2,(i30 33 

San Pete (;(j+,07l' 1 ,050 18 

Washingtou (;Oo,rj72 1 ,513 1)3- 

Juab 45'.t,21)(> 1,148 24- 

Iron 446,05() 1,115 14 

Morgan 42.s,!)28 1,072 32 

Kane 343, !M4 859 8G 

Hoaver 410.320 1,025 80 

Millard 300,810 752 04 

Sevier 287,528 718 82' 

Wasateh 183,700 459 40 

Rich 1 08,1)40 422 35. 

Piute 119,512 298 75 

Totals $22,553,000 $50,384 15 

This does not include mines or mining improvements, ueitlier of wliich 
was taxed at the time. The rates of taxation are three mills on the dollar 
for Territorial purposes, and three for schools; counties may levy in their 
discretion not to exceed six ; cities and towns are generally restricted to five 
mills for ordinary expenses, five mills for opening, improving, and keeping 
in repair the streets; while they are all empowered to tax in their disci'etion 
for the purpose of providing water and water works. In no Territory or 
State are the taxes so moderate as in Utah. Real estate is directly taxed 
upon assessment of value. Mines are exempt, but improvements on them — 
buildings, machinery, mills, etc., — are taxed the same as other real estate. 
Personal property, whether of residents or non-residents, is taxed if within 
the Territory, but foreign mouey, loaned here, the papers being held abroad,, 
is not taxed. If the system of t;ixing personal property is in some respects 
objectionable, it is no more so than :n New York, Illinois, and other States, 
and it seems to be impossible to devise a better. From taxable credits debts 
are allowed to be deducted. Stocks of incorporations whose property is 
taxable are exempt. In most respects the Utah revenue law is a liberal one,, 
although it does not proceed to the extent of exempting mortgages. The 
General Government pays the Legislative expenses, the expenses of the 
courts in United States cases, the s^alaries of the Governor, Secretary, Judges,. 
and its own especial officers, such as Marshal, Prosecuting Attorney, Sur- 
veyor General, Register, Receiver, Collector, etc. 

Indians. — There are about 8,000 Indians in Utah — 1,000 Shoshones in the 
north, 1,200 Goship Shoshones in the west, 300 Weber Utes about Salt Lake 
City, 800 Pah- Vents below Fillmore, 800 Piedes at Beaver, 1,000 Pi-Utes 
around St. George, 1,000 Elk Mountain and Red Lake Utes in the southeast^ 
and the Seberetchcs east of San Pete. Between $20,000 and $30,000 worth 
of food and clothing is annually distributed among them by the Interior De- 
partment. Many of them belong to the Mormon Church, and some system- 
atic efforts have been made to settle and civilize them, as in Skull Valley 
and at Corn Creek. The policy of the Department has been to gather them 
all on a big reservation at the junction of the two Uintah rivers, east of the 
Wasatch and south of the Uintah ranges, but most of them prefer to vaga- 
bondize and beg about the settlements. In general they are harmless 
although there was serious trouble with them, formerly, both north and 
south. 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION. §5 



CHAPTER IX. 

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES. 

As is well known Utah was originally settled by the Latter-day Saints, a3 
they call themselves, or Mormons, as popularly known. At their last con- 
ference they reported 108,907 souls belonging to their Church, including in- 
fants, leaving about 20,00u to be divided among other sects and non-profes- 
sors. In 1875 they returned 167 buildings for public worship, one in each 
ecclesiastical ward. As a general thing these edifices are cheap and plain 
but substantial, and they are often used as school-houses. Tliey have a 
completed temple for the performance of religious rites at St. George, and 
are building temples at Manti, at Salt Lake City and at Logan. No expense 
is spared in the construction of tliese temples, and their plans are not 
devoid of architectural merit. The temple at Salt Lake is 100 by 200 feet on 
the ground, and the walls are to be 100 feet high. They are of Little Cotton- 
wood granite, and are now laid to a height of 33 feet. The building has 
been in process of construction for many years, but the work was not hurried 
until since the era of railroads. The materials and labor are donated. No doubt 
the total cost of these temples will be in the neighborhood of $3,000,000, the 
one at Salt Lake City, where the semi-annual conferences are held, being by 
far the most costly and imposing. Pending the completion of this structure, 
they constructed a mammoth building at Salt Lalve City called a "laher- 
nacle," oval in ground plan, with a vast turtle-shaped dome for covernig, 
capable of seating 7,500 people. The roof of this building is said to have 
required a million shingles, and it is the most conspicuous object in the city 
It contains the second or third largest organ in America, constructed by 
Utah artisans, (from the "old country,") quite largely of domestic materiaN-. 

Christian Churches. — About ten years ago, the promnient Christian sects 
began to construct churches and build up congregations in Utah, and now 
have twenty-two church edifices, thirty-five congregations in twf^nty-nine 
towns, and twenty-eight regular pastors, sustaining as a part of their work 
twenty-five mission schools, in twenty towns, with an enrollment of nearlj 
2,000 students. One can have a choice of Protestant services in all tlie 
larger towns in the northern part of Utah, and of such towns the list is 
yearly added to. In Salt Lake City the Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, 
Episcopalians, and Congregationalists have churches, costing in the aggre- 
gate, including ground, $125,000. 

EDUCATIONAL. 
From the report of the Superintendent of District Schools for 1877, it 
appears that the school population, children between six and 16 years of age,. 
was 30,7i)2, and the enrollment 19,771), or 64 per cent. Tlie average daily 
attendance was 13,420, 43.5 per cent. For the last 14 years the av( lage 
attendance was 39 per cent of the school population. The whole number of 



56 THK KICSOURCES OF UTAH. 

ficliools reported was 327, with 232 male and 238 female teacher?, jiaid 
$^77,054, the former an average of $47, and the latter of |23 per month. The 
value of nominal district school property was $323,202; of property owned 
by private scliools, ^75,000; total, $31)8,202, exclusive of buildings erected 
for school purposes and under the direction of school trustees used as 
ciiurches on the Sabbath, which would make the total valuation of school 
property in the Territory quite $000,000. 

The amount of taxes collected by the trustees of school districts and 
appropriated to the use of district schools, was $30,115; the amount appro- 
priated by tlie Territory was $20,000, exclusive of $5,000 for the support of 
the Deseret University, a total of $50,115. The schools are kept open, on 
the average, two terms of twelve weeks each in the year. The average rate 
of tuition in the district schools is $4 a term. The attendance being 13,420, 
the total cost for the two terms, supposing all the teacliing to liave been 
paid for, would be $107,360, of which there was raised by taxation as above 
$50,115. This is about suflicient to give the 39 per cent of the school popu- 
lation which attends school, one ordinary term of schooling per year. 
Whether there would not be a g^'eater attendance were there a more adetiuate 
public provision for schooling, is a suggestive (lue.stion; probably tliere 
would be. All children of school age have the advantage of the scliool taxf»s, 
as far as they go, but it will be seen that they do not go f;;r, being only 
$1.6073 per capita of the total school population, and not (juite $4 for the 
actual attendance. It is intended that no child shall be turned away from 
these schools, while they are open, because its parents cannot i>ay for its 
tuition, but it is questionable whether it is carried out in practict? to much 
extent, since school teaching cannot be afforded gratuitously as a rule. 
There was raised by taxation for school buildings in 1877, beside the 
amount given above, $30,717. 

Tke School System. — Under the existing school system an annual Terri- 
torial tax of three mills on the dollar is levied for ordinary school purposes. 
Eating the taxable property of the Territory at ^25,000,000, this will realize 
$75,000, not enough to give the entire school population the benefit of one 
term a year, but quite enough to give it to the probable average attendance. 
But beside this, the school district trustees may levy such tax, not exceeding 
three per cent per annum, as may be necessary for the purchase or building 
of school houses or for other school purposes, provided it shall be approved 
by two-tl)irds of the resident (|ualitied voters of the district who may be 
present at a meeting called for the purpose. This empowers the people by 
districts to provide for the education of their children by taxation as far as 
they deem best, and secures a flexibility in the system not without its advan- 
tages in a new country whose circumstances usually vary widely in different 
localities, although it is open to serious objections. 

Private Sriiools. — Beside the district schools, there are the Deseret Uni- 
versity, the Brigham Young Academy, 25 to 30 private and select schools, 
and 25 mission schools— six Methodist, five Episcopal, twelve Presbyterian, 
and two Catholic, with perhaps 4,000 enrolled pupils, $75,000 worth of school 
property, and paying salaries aggregating $50,000 a year. Of the missiou 
.scliools, in which tuition costs an average of $8 a term, and which have four 



RELIGION AND EDUCATION, 57 

terms per year, there are two in Logan, one in Brighara City, one jn Malad 
(Idalio), one in Hooper, four in Ogden, live in Salt Lake City, one in Tooele, 
one in Pleasant Grove, one in Provo, one in Springville, one in Payson, one 
in Nephl, one in Beaver, one in Mt. Pleasant, one in Ephraim, one in Manti, 
and one in Monroe. The Deseret University is a high school, with an aver- 
age attendance of about 150, advertising three courses of study — preliminary, 
scientific, and classical-preparatory. It has a library of 2,600 volumes, 
standard and miscellaneous, a laboratory well supplied with mathematical, 
philosophical, and cliemical apparatus, and a cabinet of minerals and curios- 
ities. It is partly sustained by tuition fees, but the Territory annually ap- 
propriates $5,000 toward its support on condition that it give a year's course 
of normal teaching to 40 representative students from different parts of the 
Territory. This number nearly covers the average attendance in the normal 
department. It would doubtless be greater but that there is a similar school 
at Logan, one at Provo (the Brigham Young Academy), and one at St. 
George. Though these may, perhaps, be ranked as high schools, they do not 
compare in any sense with the high schools in New England. 

Mission Schools. — The mission schools are mainly primary schools, at 
least all of them have primary as well as the higher departments. But it is 
from the fact that the students are primary. Tlie teachers would generally 
rank with those of high schools. The Episcopal, Catholic, Methodist, and 
Presbyterian schools at Salt Lake City are prepared to give a course of clas- 
sical-preparatory study; the number of students in their higher departments 
annually increases, and they have and do occasionally prepare students for 
college ; but no high school in Utah has ever yet graduated a class. These 
schools have prescribed courses of study, while at the Deseret University 
•evei'ything is done on the optional system. The Salt Lake Academy, found- 
ed in 1878, and controlled by a self-perpetuating Board of Trustees, is mod- 
eled upon the plan of the higher New England academies, and has no prima- 
ry department. It differs from the mission schools in not having official 
relations with any church organization. The object of the school is two- 
fold ; to provide teachers of high grade for the Territory, and to prepare stu- 
dents for college. Its attendance has steadily increased since it was opened, 
and among its students have been several who have formerly attended the 
higher academies East. 

In General. — It may be said, upon the whole, that Utah affords the ordi- 
nary school and religious facilities of the Territories. It should be borne in 
mind that it has had no assistance, either in land or money, the policy of the 
Federal Government being to restrict these favors to the States. The late 
Brigham Young endowed the high school at Provo, mentioned above, called 
the Brigham Young Academy, with the building and grounds, estimated 
value, $15,000. He also improvised an academy at Logan and endowed it 
with 9,000 to 10,000 acres of land, and still another school, in Salt Lake City, 
with a building site. No steps have yet been taken to utilize these gifts, 
except in the case of the Provo Academy, which was built and had been 
running previous to the endowment. In all the district and higher schools 
of the Territory, some scholars are educated free, but not a great many. la 
the nature of things it cannot be expected. Some of the mission schools 



68 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

have a certain number of scholarships endowed by phihinthropic persons, 
£ast, notably the Episcopal. The public provision, Territorial, is given 
above, about $75,000 a year. The districts may be expected to raise half as 
much more by taxation, enough, say, to give the total school population one 
terra of three months schooling every year. Tuition may be supposed, 
though it is a rather violent supposition, to provide for another term per 
year, and that is the utmost that can be expected at present. From the best 
information obtainable it is believed this involves as much care and effort in 
behalf of education as is common in the territories. 

There are nine high schools, or schools that would grade as such with 
proper encouragement. No effort should be spared, and in case of the mis- 
sion schools at least, and the Salt Lake Academy, none will be spared, to 
make them equal in every respect to high schools in the East. Instead of 
our people sending their bo3S and girls to the States to (inish their education 
they should supply their own wants in this respect by encouraging their 
home academies, and also the wants of adjoining Territories. They should 
also turn out a superior grade of teachers, and by that means keep alive and 
ever increasing the interest in education in this and the suiTOunding young 
commonwealths, stimulating the people to greater efforts, to the furnishing 
of better facilities, better (lualified and better paid teachers, and steadily 
raising the standard of buildings, of text books and apparatus, of the system 
of teaching and studying. The attention of wealthy people who desire to 
devote part of their moans to the advancement of education is earnestly 
called to this field. In all the Territory a year's schooling costs, either in 
taxation or tuition, or both, from $10 to $30 a scholar, probably an average 
of $20, against $4 in Switzerland and $5 in Germany. No aid in lands has 
been rendered by the General Government, and none is likely to be until 
Utah becomes a State. No practicable remedy for this suggests itself. But 
at the same time, the quality of teaching might be very greatly improved. 
There are at least five schools in Salt Lake City, to-wit : the Rocky Moun- 
tain Seminary, the Salt Lake Academy, the Salt Lake Collegiate Institute, 
St. Mark's, and St. Mary's, that might be enabled by a generous endowment 
in tiie ordinary way, to afford teaching at $10 instead of $i'S or $30 a year, 
and to become and maintain themselves as high schools e(|ual to the very 
best in the country, each sustaining a normal department, and turning out 
every 'year a score of finished teachers, almost infinitely better qualified, 
for their duties than the a-verage now teaching in the Territory. 

There are published in Utah five daily, three weekly, five semi-weekly, 
two semi-monthly, and two monthly papers, with an aggregate circulation of 
nearly 30,000 copies. There are four libraries, two Territorial, (one law), 
one Masonic, the latter managed as a circulating library, all small as yet, 
but steadily growing. There are of benevolent societies probably 200, one 
or more in nearly every town, nine-tenths of them semi-religious. The 
Masons and Odd Fellows have lodges in two or three of tlie leading towns, 
but no real property to speak of. 



ATTRACTIONS FOR TOURISTS. 59 



CHAPTER X. 

ATTRACTIONS— SALT LAKE CITY— GREAT SALT LAKE. 

Of the pleasure resorts in Utah, Salt Lake City ranks as the first. 
Located on the bar of a fine mountain stream which tips it up gently toward 
the setting winter sun, the streets are spacious and wide apart, bordered 
with trees and purling brooks, giving ample room for buildings, gardens, 
orchards, shrubbery, and ornamental grounds. Foliage largely conceals the 
houses in summer, and as the country is naturally destitute of trees, the 
contrast is striking and pleasing. 

Climate. — The mean summer temperature is about 74, but on account of 
the dry and rare atmosphere it is not more oppressive than a mean five 
degi'ees lower wo\ild be on the sea level. Although the mercury often reads 
nearly 100 in July and August, sunstroke is unknown, severe thunder and 
lightning are infrequent, the nights are uniformly cool, and denizens of the 
city who are obliged to visit the East in the hot months are exceedingly glad 
to get back again. There is no comparison between the comfoi't of the 
average Salt Lake and the average Eastern climate in the same latitude, and 
it is equally noticeable at all seasons of the jear. The mean temperature in 
winter is about 30, and the Salt Laker often has occasion to felicitate him- 
self on the enjoyment of the pleasantest of winter weather, when the great 
Eastern railroads are blocked up by snow, or the mercury at the chief 
centres of population day after day reads from fifteen to thirty below zero. 
Five degrees above zero is the mean minimum at Salt Lake City for 16 years,, 
and 92 o the mean range as shown by table of meteoroh gical observations- 
at Fort Douglas, on the bench adjacent to the city, furnished by Surgeon 
Clements, U. S. A., and published on page 14. The real winter holds from, 
three to six weeks only. The annual mean is 51.43®, and a residence in 
the city is worth the while solely for the agreeableness of the climate. 

Accommodations. — Salt Lake City has ample and pleasant hotel accommo- 
dations and a good market, ensuring comfort at reasonable prices; it has 
gas, excellent water, supplied from City Creek by means of piping laid under 
the streets, with frequent hydrants and head suflicient to force it over the 
tops of the highest buildings; it has churches of the principal Christian 
denominations and fair schools; eight to ten miles of street car lines; and a 
fine theatre. It is peaceful and orderly; taxes are very moderate; and from 
it the most popular places of resort — the Warm Springs, Great Salt Lake, 
the Cottonwoods, Bingham, and American Fork Canons, and Parley's Park, 
are easily accessible; that is one can visit most of these places and return 
the same day if he chooses. The Warm Springs are less than two miles by 
the street cars from the principal hotels. Salt Lake is reached on the south 
shore via the Utah Western in twenty miles ; on the east shore via the Utah) 



"60 THK RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

Central In fifteen. One goes to Alta, in Little Cottonwood, by rail in twenty- 
five miles; thence horseback into Bij; Cottonwood, Parley's Park, or 
American Fork. The first two are reached by wagon in a few hours' ride, 
if preferred. The last by rail to the village of American Fork, and then 
horses or carriages. Bingham Canon is the same distance from the city by 
rail as Alta. 

Points of Interrst. — One of the most interesting points in the vicinity is 
Fort Douglas, a well-built full-regiment post, located on a plateau about 
three miles east of and 500 feet above the city. The post and grounds are 
laid out with taste, a small stream of mountain water making the culture of 
trees, shrubbei'y, grass, and (lowers possible. The elevation gives almost a 
bird's-eye view of the city and valley. In the distance lies the Dead Sea of 
America, a blue band drawn along the base of island mountains the vistas 
between which ai"e closed by more distant ranges. In the north the Pro- 
montory divides the waters, ending far out in the lake. Across Jordan Val- 
ley the Oquirrh rises to a lofty height from the lake shore, white with snow 
great part of the year, and often veiled by clouds. On the south a low cross 
range completes the enclosure of Jordan Valley, which lies an unrolled map 
at one's feet. An even liner view, and one much sought, is afforded from 
Ensign Peak, north of the city, one might say at the head of Main Street, 
although its ascent must be afoot. Among the attractive objects in 
the city are the Tabernacle, a unique structure, with its immense organ; 
the foundation and rising white walls of the Temple; the Salt Lake Museum, 
a valuable collection of Utah minerals and of curiosities from many lands; 
and the Warm Springs, nicely improved and with commodious buildings and 
conveniences for all sorts of bathing. There are some good public buildings 
and many noble private residences and beautiful grounds. A drive round the 
<;ity and to Fort Douglas is interesting and enjoyable. It might well extend 
to Emigration Canon, near the fort, or to Parley's Canon, further south. The 
country on the Cottonwoods, adjoining the city southward, is highly im- 
proved for several miles out. The system of city streets, making blocks of 
ten acres, is extended over this rural suburb, where they become country 
lanes, and afford the most delightful drives through cultivated fields, orchards, 
and improvised groves of trees. Occasionally there is a small sheet of arti- 
ficial or natural water, which has been improved and beautified with especial 
reference to the wants of pleasure seekers. 

Wasatch Bange. — It may be doubted, however, whether Salt Lake City 
affords any pleasure equal to that of the perpetually varying picture present- 
ed by the magnilicent range of mountains, which rises abruptly to a height of 
8,000 feet above the valley, with no accompaniment of foot hills to conceal 
or dwarf its proportions. No words are competent to describe it. Much of 
the year it is white with snow. In the autumn it wears all the colors of the 
rainbow in succession as its shrubbery is touched more and more severely 
by the frosts. In the spring only do its lower slopes present a green appear- 
ance On northern exposures it is dark with pines. Its general summer hue 
is gray, although its light and shade and color are as variable as the wind 
that plays about its inaccessible summits, invades their recesses, and in its 
persistent efforts to crumble them, has chiseled out gorges in the solid rock 



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ATTRACTIONS FOR TOIIRESTSi. 61 

thousands of feet deep, giving infinite variety of form and outline to face and 
brow and crest. Form and color are but surface aspects, liowever. Tlie in- 
terest in them is ever renewed because they perpetually change with the sea- 
sons or with the point of view. The mighty range gets a deeper hold of one 
from its suggestions of primary forces and principles, such as had to do with 
the forming and shaping the globe itself, and are now busying themselves 
with its destiny. Nothing could seemingly present the idea of immutability 
more strikingly. Ever changing yet still the same ; apparently indifferent to 
the elemental warfare of which it is the gi'and arena; emblem of enduring 
strength; solenm and awful. Yet the impalpable ether which bathes its 
mighty brows shall in a few years spread its entire mass upon the floor of 
the ocean from whence it arose. 

The basic rocks of the Wasatch are quartzose, mica and hornblendic 
schists. Next above these is a heavy bed of stratified quartzites. Next 
above, a bed of gray limestone, probably of Silurian age, and a group of 
shales, clays, and quartzites intervenes between this and another limestone 
formation which belongs to the Carboniferous age. The range extends 
throughout Utah and far into Montana, but it is seen to greatest advantage 
from Salt Lake City, and froni the valley for two hundred miles north and 
south. Its canons are the result of erosion, and are due to the quantity of 
snow precipitated upon its higher regions. Many of its summits exceed 
12,000 feet in altitude. The Twin Peaks, overshadowing Jordan Valley, 
rise 12,000 feet above the sea and the high peak further south to 12,500. 
Everywhere it is an imposing and picturesque object, but overlooking the 
Salt Lake Basin from Mt. Nebo to Bear River Gates, it is a Titanic monu- 
ment of nature's rearing upon which, with incomparable touch, ancAV picture 
is painted by the same great artist every day in the year. 

GEE AT SALT LAKE. 

The first mention of Salt Lake was by the Baron La Hontan in 1689, who 
gathered from the Western Indians some vague notions of its existence. He 
romanced at length about the Tahuglauk, numerous as the leaves of trees, 
dwelling on its fertile shores and navigating it in large craft. Captain Bon- 
neville sent a party from Green River in 1833 to make its circuit, but they 
seem to have given it up on sticking the northwestern desert, lose their way 
and after some aimless wandering found themselves in Lower California. 
Until Colonel Fremont visited it in 1842, on his way to Oregon, it is proba- 
ble that its dead waters had never been invaded or the solemn stillness of its 
islands broken. He pulled out from near the mouth of Weber River in a 
rubber boat eighteen feet long for the nearest island, which when he had 
climbed and found a mere rock, as he says, fourteen miles in circuit, he 
named "Disappointment Island." Captain Stansbury re-christened it "Fre- 
mont Island," and by common consent such it is called. Captain Stansbury 
found neither timber nor water on it, but luxuriant grass, wild onions, 
parsnips and sego. Near the summit the sagebrush were eight feet high and 
six or eight inches in diameter. 

Shores. — This was in 1850, in the early spring of which Captain Stans- 
bury spent three months in making a detailed survey of the shores of the 
lake and its islands. He found the western ^llore a salt-encru«tcd desert, 



«62 IMK RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

till traviTsiiiir wliicli his men moro than once well ni^h perish cdfor want of 
water; the northern shore composed of wide salt marshes, oversowed under 
steady southerly winds; the Promontory Range, which projects thirty miles 
into the lake from the north, having many sweet water springs around its 
base, and a good range, (now covered with flocks and herds;) the southern 
shore set with mountain ranges, standing endwise to the lake, with grassy 
'valleys intervening, Sjjring, Tuilla andJordan; tlie eastern shore fair irrigable 
land. The latter was then already dotted with infant settlements, and was pro- 
ducing seventy-live bushels of wheat to the acre. Almost everywhere land and 
water were divided by mud flats, across which they were forever dragging 
rtheir boats and packing their baggage. 

Ishmtls. — The principal islands are Antelope and Stansbury, rocky ridges, 
ranging north and south, rising abruptly from the lake to an altitude of 
3,000 feet. Antelope is the nearest to Salt Lake City, and is sixteen miles 
long. Stansbury is twenty miles to the westward of Antelope, and twelve 
miles long. Both at that time were accessible from the southern shore by 
wagon. Both had springs of sweet water and good grass for stock. The 
view from the summit of Antelope is described as "grand and magnificent, 
embracing the whole lake, the islands, and the encircling mountains covered 
with snow — a superb picture set in a framework of silver." Mention is 
made of the scenery on the eastern side of Stansbury. "Peak towers above 
peak, and cliff beyond cliff, in lofty magnificence, while, crowning the sum- 
mit, the 'dome' frowns in gloomy solitude upon the varied scene of bright 
waters, scattered verdure, and boundless plain (western shore) of arid des- 
olation below." Descending one day from the 'dome,' "the gorge, at first 
almost shut up between perpendicular cliffs of white sandstone, opened out 
into a superb, wide, and gently sloping valley, sheltered on each side to the 
very water's edge by beetling cliffs, effectually protected from all winds,- 
except on the east, ami covered with a most luxuriant growth of bunch-grass. 
Near the shore were al)undant springs of pure soft water," probably covered 
by the water of the lake now There was no sweet water on the western 
side of the island. Of the minor islands there are Fremont, Carrington, 
Gunnison, Dolphin, Jlud, Kgg, Hat, and several islets without names. 
With the ranges enclosing the valley they present water marks at different 
heights, one principal one 800 feet above the present lake level, indicating a 
comparatively recent receding of the waters, either from change of climate 
or of the relative level of the mountains and basin. 

Ocolofjii. — In all probability the whole area between the Sierra Nevada 
and the Wasatch was once a lake, in which the mountains rose as islands, 
and of which the lakes now existing, large and small, are the remnants. 
The deposits which cover the lowlands are chiefly calcareous and arenaceous, 
and often filled with fresh water and land shells, indicating a very modern 
origin. The formation of the islands aud shoie ranges adjoining Salt Lake 
is metamorphic; the strata distinctly marked and highly inclined, but attain- 
ing no great elevation; generally overlaid with sandstones and limestones 
of the Carboniferous age, both partly altered, the former constituting the 
loftier eminences; in places highly fossiliferous, in others losing their 
granular character and becoming sub-crystaline, or threaded by veins of 



AT'riJ ACTIONS FOR TOURISTS. 63 

■T-alcareous spar; the saiul.stones often from metaniorphic action takiiiy; the 
■character of (juartz. lu places on the ishmds the surface is chaniied rocks, 
talcose, and mica shites, hornblende, and sienite. Captain Stansbury 
found the top of an island twenty miles west of the northern point of 
Antelope, to consist of fine rooting slate. A nail could be driven through it 
almost as easily as through a shingle. It was in unlimited quantity. On 
auothev small island he found cubic crystals of iron pyrites in seams of 
ferruginous ((uartz. Near tlie point of Promontory Range he noticed a cliff 
-of alum shale nearly a mile in length, traversed by dikes of trap, the shale 
containing numerous veins of very pure fibrous alum. Close by were strata 
of mica slate, fine grindstone-grit, sandstone, and albite. It is a manganese 
instead of an alkaline or true alum, but may be substituted for common 
alum in tanning leather, and also, as a coloring agent in dyeing. Some of 
'the islands are crowned with ledges of black and cream-colored marble. 

NavUjation. — Captain Stansbury navigated and examined the lake thorough- 
ly, and Avas often oppressed by its solitude, nothing living in the water, 
although aquatic birds cover the shores and islands in the breeding season, 
either carrying their food from the fresh water streams that feed the lake or 
feeding on the larvae of diptera, which accumulate in great quantity on or 
near the beaches. His boat was named the "Sali-cornia," contracted to 
^'Sally" for common use, but he left no data as to its style and tonnage 
except that it was flat bottomed. Next in order among the navigators of 
the lake were the Walker Brothers, merchants of Salt Lake City, who sailed 
a lonesome pleasure yacht for some years. There is now a considerable 
yachting fleet. In 1868 General Connor built and launched the "Kate Con- 
nor," a small steamer, for the purpose of transporting railroad ties and tele- 
graph poles from the southern to the northern .shore. The next spring he 
built a schooner of 100 tons burthen, called the "Pluribustah." These w^ere 
followed by a pleasure steamer, brought on I y John W. Young from New 
York, and in 1870, by the building and launching of a first-class boat costing 
$45,000, by Fox Diefendorf, called at first "City of Corinne," afterward 
changed to "General Garfield." This boat is used chiefly for excursions, 
there being no business to justify Great Salt Lake navigation. The indus- 
tries of its shores are not so magnificent, it seems, as those of the Tahug-- 
lauk in La Hontaii's time, or perhaps railroads serve them better. The 
"Kate Connor" and her kindred long ago found a resting place at the bottom 
of the lake. 

Excursions. — Though the land in sight is for the most part brown and 
sunburnt, an excursion on the lake is exceedingly interesting. The reader 
is supposed to have gone out to Lake Point on the south shore via the Utah 
Western, the distai; .e being 22 miles, and to have embarked on the General 
Garfield, which is well arranged and furnished for comfort. Our course is 
northward, between Antelope and Stansbury. The water is of a beautiful 
aquamarine, and so clear that the bottom is seen through three or four fath- 
oms of it. Behind, on shore, are the Oquirrh and Spring Valley Ranges, 
with Tooele (Tuilla) Valley intervening and rising as it recedes so as to hide 
Rush Valley into which the, Dry and Ophir Canons open. A few miles from 
shore the village of Tooele is indicated by an oasis of foliage, while far to 



64 THE Rh:.S<)URCP» OF UTAH. 

the west, nmlrr the irloainiiit: Spriiifr Valley Haiij;e, hi}:li eiioii<:h to retain a. 
few snow banks, althoiijih it i-. .Inly, lies the villajie of (irants\ ille. Abreast 
of Antelope Island we distinjiiiishi'd frraxinfi herds. If borinji on tiiis island 
would brintr plenty of sweet water what a fruit plantation it might be made, 
with the lake to keep off the frosts. 

Between two and three hours out, havinji passed Stansbury, the view 
northwestward enlarjjes and we nufrht iniaf^ine ourselves standinjr out to sea 
but for an islet or two breakinj; the horizon. Through notches in the Cedar 
Mountains on the west the eye catches the snowy foreheads of the Goshoot 
and Deep Creek ranges; while on the-east the Wasatch ri.scs 8,000 feet above 
the deck of the steamer, a rugged, massive, gray wall of weather-sculptured 
rock 200 miles in length. Soon we have run past Antelope and are abreast 
of Fremont, which may be known by a rock upon its crest supposed to 
resemble a castle. Continuing northward we shall soon have the Promontory 
Range on our left, with the water shoaling from 15 to six or seven feet in 
our run of 20 miles, where we enter the channel of Bear River. Less than 
40 years ago Fremont could not enter Great Salt Lake from Bear River in a 
rubber boat 18 feet long, for want of water. Now, our boat of 250 tons bur- 
then, passes from the lake iuto the river over the bank 20 miles from the 
lake shore. We can proceed up the river to Corinne, where the Central Pa- 
cific Railroad crosses it, but lake excursions do not extend so far, or even so 
far as we have come. They ujsually go out 15 or 20 miles, far enough to get 
a good view of the surroundings, and thei-e are few more interesting sights 
to be seen anywhere, and then return. 

j^rea — Contents.— Great Salt Lake covers an area of 3,000 to 4,000 square 
miles, and its surface is higher than the average Alleghany iMountains. Its 
mean depth, probably, does not exceed 20 feet, the deepest place, between 
Antelope and Stansbury, being GO feet. The two principal islands used to be 
accessible from the shore by wagon; but the lake gradually tilled live or six 
feet, from 1847 to 185G, and then slowl,v receded to its old level. In 1803 it 
began to till again, and in four or five years liad attained the height it has 
since steadily maintaitu'd. In 1875 a pillar was set up at Black Rock, by 
which to measure this rise and lull, resembling a tide, but having no ascer- 
tained time. 

The Water. — It was once popularly supposed that the lake communicated 
■with the ocean by a subterranean river which made a terrible whirlpool 
somewhere on its surface. Needless to say, neither has been found. Re- 
ceiving so many streams and having no outlet, it has become very saline from 
concentration and the inflow of salt sprmgs. The saline or solid matter held 
in solution by the water varies as the lake rises or subsides. In 1842 Fre- 
mont obtained "fourteen pints of very white salt" from five gallons of the 
water evaporated over a camp lire. The salt was also very pure, assaying 
97.80 fine. In 1850 Dr. L. D. Gale analyzed a sample of it which yielded full 
20 per cent of pure common salt, and about two per cent of foreign salts, 
chlorides of lime and magnesia. Surgeon Smart, U. S. A., analyzed a sample 
in 1877 and found an imperial gallon to contain nearly 24)^ ounces of saline 
matter, amounting to 14 per cent, as follows: . 



ATTRACTIONS FOR TOURISTS. 65 

Common salt 11.735 

Lime carbouate 016 

Lime sulphate 073 

Epsom salt 1.123 

Chloride of magnesia 843 

Percentage of solids 13.790 

Water 86.210 

100. 
One hundred grains of the dry solid matter contained: 

Common salt 85.089 

Lime carbonate 117 

Lime sulphate 531 

J^psom salt 8.145 

■ C Idoride of magnesia 6.118 

100. 
It compares with other saline waters about as follows: 

■^'ater. Solids. 

Atlantic Ocean 96.5 3.5 

Mediterranean 9^>.2 3.8 

Dead Sea 76. 24. 

•Great Salt Lake 86. 14. 

And in specific gravity, distilled water being unity : 

Ocean water 1 026 

Dead Sea I-IK^ 

Great Salt Lake ^ 1.107 

The solid matter in the water will vary between spring and fall, between dry 
and wet seasons, and also between different parts of the lake, for nearly all 
the fresh water is received from the Wasatch on the east. It is the opinion 
of salt makers that an average of the lake at its present stage would show 
the presence of 17 per cent of solid matter. It is undoubtedly a concentra- 
tion of the waters of the ocean, in which, as in Salt Lake, says Dr. Smart, 
the common and magnesian salts are held in solution, while the insoluble 
lime salts are precipitated to the bottom. Captain Stansbury found by 
experiment that it answered perfectly for preserving meats'. 

Bathing. — Within the last few years the lake has become of great interest 
as a watering place. During July and August the water, under the long 
sunny days, becomes deliciously warm, and it is much warmer than ocean 
water a month earlier and later. It is so dense that one sustains himself in- 
definitely without effort, and vigorous constitutions experience no incon- 
venience from remaining in it all day. A more delightful and healthy exer- 
cise than buffeting its waves when a little rougii can hardly be imagined. 
But for its tendency to float the limbs to the surface and the necessity of 
keeping it out of the nostrils, it would afford the best swimming school in 
the world. As it is, all ages and sexes in Salt Lake City are fast mastering 
the art. Experience has proved its hj'gienic benefits as well as its pleasure. 
Whether it be the stimulating effects of the brine on the skin, of the salt air 
ou the lungs, or of the exercise of the muscles mvolved in swimming, or all 



66 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

of thera together, many have come to the conclusion that a few weeks' 
sojourn on the hikb shore in the hot season is absolutely essential to their 
liealth and well-being. 

Lake Point. — Lake Point is about twenty- two miles from the city via tl>e 
Utah Western, and during the hot months cheap trains leave the city for the 
bathing wharf daily at the close of business hours, sometimes carrying 500 
at a load. The run is made in half an hour, and the excursion is pleasant 
aside from the bathing. Two or three miles of the shore from Black Rock to 
Lake Point, around the end of the Oquirrh, is sandy, soft to the feet, clean, 
shelving, and admirably adapted to the purpose. Some day it will be built 
up with private watering-place cottages, plentifully interspersed by large, 
airy, roomy hotels, with water and trees for the grounds ; and it will be 
thronged in the bathing season, as no ordinary seaside resort ever is; for it • 
will offer unparalleled attractions in its way, rest, comfort, saline air, and 
the most delightful and invigorating exercise, calling into play all the mus- 
cles. Never tiring, the water is so buoyant; never chilling, it is so warm, 
free from danger, recreating and invigorating, a tonic for all, a healing for 
many ills.'health restoring and strength renewing. There is a hotel at Lake 
Point, a large private house at Black Kock, and liathing houses all along tlu;. 
shore. Other parts of the lake shores, on the line of the Utah Central and 
Central Pacific railroads, are resorted to for bathing, and they are supplied 
with more or less of the necessary conveniences. It is becoming understood 
that for the renewal of life and energy there is nothing like a few weeks of 
Salt Lake bathing interspersed with visits to the medicinal springs and the 
mountain canons and lakes. 



AllNEKAL SPRINdS, Etc. 67 



CHAPTER XL 

MINERAL SPRINGS— WASATCH CANONS. 

Of the chemical and thermal, salt, sulphur, soda, and chalybeate springs 
which abound in all parts of Utah, the Warm Springs of Salt Lake City are 
best known and most resorted to for comfort or health. Dr. Gale says the 
water is a Harrowgate water, abounding in sulphur. It is very limpid, hav- 
ing a strong smell of sulphureted hydrogen, and contains the gas both ab- 
sorbed in the water and combined with mineral bases. Following is an 
analysis by Dr. Charles T. Jackson, of Boston : 

" Three fluid ounces of the water, on evaporation to entire dryness in a 
platina capsule, gave 8.25 grains of solid, dry, saline matter. 

Carbonate of lime and magnesia 0.240 1.280 

Peroxide of iron 0.040 0.208 

Lime 0.545 2.907 

Chlorine 3.454 18.421 

Soda 2.877 15.334 

Magnesia 0.370 2.073 

Sulphuric acid 0.703 3.748 



Total 8.229 43.981 

It is slightly charged with hydro-sulphuric acid gas, and with carbonic acid 
gas, and is a pleasant, saline mineral water, having valuable properties be- 
longing to saline sulphur springs." 

Issuing from the mountain side in large volume, temperature 95 to 104 
degrees, the water is conveyed in pipes into two or three large bathing 
houses, containing plunge, shower, and tub baths, and dressing and waiting 
rooms. The property is owned and improved by the city. It is connected 
with the leading hotels by the street cars, and is visited by everybody, the 
waters being considered very efficacious in the cure of many diseases, para- 
lytic, rheumatic, and scrofulous. 

Hot and Bed Spnngs. — Some other springs in Utah have been improved, 
and more ought to be. Three miles north of Salt Lake City the Hot Springs 
boil up from under the rocks in such quantity as to make a lake covering 
two square miles. The temperature is 128 degrees, and the sulphurous 
fumes are almost stifling. The Red Springs, ten or flfteen miles north of 
Ogden, are hot waters so impregnated with iron as to kill the vegetation over 
a large area, and color the ground a crimson red; hence the name. A large 
building for the use of these springs in any way experience may suggest, 
chiefly at present for bathing, was erected in 1878. Fui'ther north, twelve 
miles from Bear River Gates, is a gi'oup of springs issuing from between 
strata of conglomerate and limestone, within a few feet of each other, 
of which one is a hot sulphur, a second warm salt, and the third, 



68 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

cool drinkable water. The volume from these springs is copious, but they 
run some distauce before they become thoroughly mixed, althougli in the 
same channel. 

Soda Springs. — Next in point of interest and medicinal value to the Warm 
Springs noticed above, are tlie Soda Springs at tlie great bend of Bear River, 
in Idaho, best reached via the Utah & Northern, which runs within 35 miles 
of them. They occupy a sort of volcanic basin, some ten miles sciuare, the 
subterranean tires of which are now nearly exhausted, or else are taking a 
long resting spell. In the vicinity there stands the crater of a dead volcano 
and the plain is studded by large mounds built up by the deposit from over- 
flowing waters whose sources have now generally failed. The vegetable pet- 
rifactions of a spring or group of springs now nearly extinct, make a high 
mound covering a square mile. Not far off there is a sulphur pool, and the 
effervesence of sulphur covers acres many feet deep. 

Steamboat Sprinrj. — This spring exhibits to the best advantage the dying 
throes of the old volsanic forces. It is a circular opening in solid rock two 
feet in diametei', resembling a huge kettle, the water boiling up vigorously 
in the center and falling over the sides. Carbonic acid gas is given off freely 
from this spring and adjoining Assures in the rock, with deadly effect, and 
with a noise like the discharge of steam from a locomotive, hence the name. 
These springs were a place of resort in Captain Bonneville's time, and Fre- 
mont describes the locality and the springs at length, finding both, as he 
says, very interesting. He found a great many springs similar in quality to 
Steamboat Spring, having a pungent and disagreeable metallic taste, leaving 
a burning effect on the tongue. The rocky deposit from this water was 
92.5 per cent lime. 

Beer Springs. — Of an entirely different character are the beer springs, of 
which there are also a great many, bubbling up everywhere, even in l!ie 
river, as was indicated by the carbonic acid gas given off. One quart of this 
water he found to contain : 

(Trains. 

Sulphate of magnesia 12.10 

Sulphate of lime 2.12 

Carbonate of lime ., 3.8(; 

Carbonate of magnesia 3.22 

Chloride of calciu m 1.33 

Chloride of magnesium 1.12 

Chloride of sodium 2.24 

Vegetable extractive matter 85 

26.84 
The carbonic acid, originally contained in the water, had mainly escaped 
before it was subjected to analysis, and was not, therefore, taken into con- 
sideration. 

As a Beverage. — Later visitors say the waters resemble in taste the Con- 
gress water of Saratoga. Though somewhat unpleasant at first, this rapidly 
wears away by use. Tliey are delightfully cool, and with the addition of a 
little lemon and sugar make a beverage equal to the soda water of commerce. 
There are a dozen active groups of springs within a radius of two miles. 
Carbonic acid gas constantly bubbles up to the surface with something of 



MINERAL SPRINGS, ETC. 69 

the sparkle and gurgle of a soda fouutain, aud it escapes so rapidly that it 
can hardly be bottled and corked with the water. 

MecUcinal. —The mineral constituents of these waters render them the 
best of alteratives, and they are very efflcacious in scrofulous and glandular 
difficulties, and generally in all diseases of the skin. They are also an ex- 
cellent diuretic and contain enough iron to give them great value as a tonic. 
The place is a favorite summer resort for invalids aud others, aud there are 
many persons in Utah who have experienced decided benefits from the use 
of the waters. The altitude is about 6,000 feet and the climate is all that 
could be wished. The warmth of summer is tempered by the coolness of 
the nights, frosts occurring in every mouth of the year. The atmosphere 
has the dryness common to the mountains and is therefore favorable for 
consumptives and those afflicted with pulmonary diseases. The scenery is 
equal to any in the Territories, there are many things of interest in the 
vicinity, and the streams are full of trout. There is a town laid out and a 
dozen or twenty buildings, but there is little or no agriculture. Stock 
raising, dairying, and wool growing, are the main pursuits of the inhabitants. 
Oneida, on the Utah & Northern, is the neirest railroad station. Transpor- 
tation is to be put on between it and the springs, this season, the springs 
improved, liotel built, and the waters introduced to the world, commercially. 

Wasatch Canons.— The Wasatch Mountains like other great chains are in 
many places a series of parallel ranges enclosing the heads of lateral streams, 
which canon only occasionally in breaking through into the Great Basin or 
the Colorado River or Snake River basins. The divide between the waters 
flowing into the Colorado and the Great Basin is crossed by the Union 
Pacific Railroad at Reed's Summit, 7,463 feet above the sea. Descending a 
few miles it crosses Bear River at an altitude of 6,969 feet, here flowing 
generally northward, follows it down ten miles, leaving it 6,656 feet above 
the sea, thence surmounting Echo Pass, 6,785 feet in height, it begins the 
direct descent into the Great Basin through Echo and Weber Canons ' 
crossing Weber River at an elevation of 5,240 feet, and striking the level of 
Salt Lake at Ogden, 4,290 feet. Echo Canon is no canon in the true sense. 
A wall of sandstone rises perpendicularly on the right coming down 300 or 
400 feet; on the left there is no wall and little rock, but a succession of 
grassy ridges sloping smoothly toward the stream. It strikes Weber River, 
another northward flowing stream, about midway of its course, and the rail- 
road follows it down through a gem of a valley for five or six miles below 
Echo City to the "Thousand Mile Tree," where the mountains assemble a 
little closer and the first canon commences. The valley suddenly narrows 
to a gorge, the rended rocks tower to the sky and almost overhang the train. 
Through tunnels and over bridges this is cleared in half a dozen miles, the 
mountains recede again and soften down into mere hills in comparison. An 
oval valley like tlie one above is passed through, the mountaics again close 
in on the river, and the train enters Devil's Gate Canon, where the naked 
rocks rise half a mile in the air. Ages ago they presented a fixed rock dam 
which it seems the river could never have conquered, but it has, and through 
the passage made by its persistence, the road soon emerges from Devil's 
Gate into the summery airs of the valley. The scenery has been described 



70 THE RESOURCES OF UTAH. 

aud illustrated until the traveling public has no excuse for not being 
perfectly familiar witli it. But one gets only a sliglit idea of its beauty and 
grandeur from a ride through it on the rail. lie must stop off, and on foot 
or horseback explore the side streams and reach various elevations half a 
mile above the river before he can be said to have seen it at all. 

Bear River Hows a long distance northward before it finds a passage out- 
ward into Cache Valley, and thence into Salt Lake Valley. Similarly the 
Provo, rising near the sources of the Weber, and flowing southward, has its 
Alpine valleys, and finally canons out into the basin. So with the Sevier, 
aud its affluents, aud so to a less extent the various minor streams that flow 
westward into the basin directly from their sources, as Logan and Black- 
smith forks. Box Elder Creek, Ogden River, the Cottonwoods, American and 
Spanish Forks, and a great many others. Une can see something of their 
beauties in hastily passing through them, but to get the full benefit of them 
he must have a camp outfit, his own conveyance and time, saddle horses, 
hunting and fishing tackle, and all the paraphernalia of the sight-seer, the 
tourist, and the sportsman. For such it is hard to select the locality since 
the Wasatch Range affords such an endless variety from end to end. 

Cache Valley. — This part of the Territory has never been much resorted 
to by the tourist, but now that Logan, a good outfitting aud starting point, 
is accessible by rail, there is no field more inviting. Cache Valley is itself 
perfection, a thing of beauty aud a joy forever. It is literally cached among 
the ridges of the Wasatch, like San Pete, Ogden, Alpiue, Morgan, Echo, 
Khoades, and Sevier valleys; and is as though, round asymmetrical oval 
area ten by fifty miles, the mountains had risen or ranged themselves at 
some mysterious bidding to show what could be done in the way of valley 
making. It is about 4,500 feet above the sea, copiously watered, enclosed 
by mountains 8,000 feet high, in whose gorges the snow lies till August, 
their sloping sides meanwhile invaded by the lively green of the valley, 
which creeps in bands to their summits between the snow banks, or appears 
in sunny places among the scattered pines aud dark points and ridges of 
rock. A fair sprinkling of forest would perfect it, but this it lacks, and the 
green of valley and mountains only relieves the eternal gray-brown of 
everything, after all. The range on the east Is the main Wasatch, deeply 
notched by the streams, which are alive with trout and afford passage over 
fiue roads to Bear Lake Valley, fifty miles eastward. Where the rivers 
emerge from their canons and rush laughing into the sunshine their waters 
are caught up and led in a thousand trickling rills to bless the fields with 
fatness. Some lighter streams and springs perform the same kindly oflice 
for the opposite side, and so there is a belt of cultivated land dotted with 
towns all around the edge of the valley. Of these Logan Is the largest, 
Smlthfleld the prettiest. From the summit of the divide crossed by the 
Utah & Northern, Cache Valley is a pretty sight. One can drive on fine 
roads all round it. It is central to Soda Springs, and Bear Lake, and 
there are good roads over hill and dale southward Into Salt Lake Valley via 
Box Elder Creek or Ogden River. 

Ogden Canon. — The same section may be penetrated almost as well from 
Ogden, which Is a second headquarters for the pleasure seeker. Of the In- 



MINERAL SPRINGS, ETC. /I 

teresting places iu the immediate vicinity, the canon of Ogden River ranks 
highest. There is a good carriage road through tlie canon, which is ten or 
twelve miles long, and tlie passage presents the same variety of immense, 
close, towering rocky walls, broken apart by the full roaring stream, com- 
mon to all the Wasatch canons. Power of resistance on the one hand and 
of attack on the other are terribly symbolized. There are minerals and 
mineral springs along the way. Tlirough the outlying range one enters 
Ogden Valley, an enclosed park, with its settlements and farms, beyond 
which the drive extends into both Bear Lake and Cache valleys. All the 
streams in that part of the Territory afford rich sport for the angler, and the 
valleys and hills are grass grown and alive with grouse and snipe, sage hens 
and prairie chickens. 

Parleifs Park. — From Salt Lake City, Parley's Park, Big Cottonwood 
Lake, and American Fork Canon are the favorite resorts. The park is about 
twenty-five miles from Salt Lake City, just over the crest of the Wasatch on 
the sources of the Weber and nearly as high as the mountains themselves. 
The road ascends through Parley's Canon and is a fine drive. There is a 
liotel in the park, but visitors usually prefer taking along with their team 
their own camping outfit. The elevation ensures refreshing coolness espe- 
cially of the nights. The park is quite extensive in area, affords good drives , 
fishing and hunting, stretches for horseback riding; and among other objects 
of interest. Park City and the Ontario mine and mill. One can get a fair 
idea of the ways and means of mining b.y a vftiit to this town, mine, and min- 
ing district. Excursions may be made eastward to the sources of the Weber 
and Provo rivers, the whole region being full of interest. It is an old forma- 
tion apparently, giving evidence of the mighty action of water or ice or both, 
geological ages ago. 

Big Cottonwood. — There are a series of small lakes at the head of Big 
Cottonwood, at the most picturesque of which, namely Mary's, a Mr. Brigh- 
ton has built a hotel for the accommodation of summer visitors. For many 
years it has been a famous mountain resort, and the number of visitors 
seeking its health-giving air and the enjoyment to be derived from a study of 
nature in its grandest aspects, is yearly increasing. The hotel is always full 
during the hot months, and the lake bordered all round with the tents and 
wagons of campers. Excursions must be afoot or horseback. They may in- 
clude visits to Park City, the Big and Little Cottonv/ood mines, to other 
rock-bound tarns, and to sightly peaks. From any of these one can look 
out over Jordan Valley, the lower section of the Oquirrh, Rush Valley, and 
in clear weather, upon the far summits of the Deep Creek Mountains, glit- 
tering like silver points in the dim distance. Perhaps the finest view is from 
Bald Peak, among the highest of the range. Standing on its top, fw^enty 
thousand square miles of mountains, gorge, lake, and valley may be swept 
by the eye. Eighty miles south Mount Nebo bounds the view. Beneath lies 
Utah Lake, a clear mirror bordered by gray slopes, and Salt Lake City em- 
bowered in foliage, with Salt Lake rolling its white caps and glittering in 
the sunshine beyond, its islands and all the valley ranges dwarfed to hills. 
Northward the higher points of the Wasatch catch the eye until they are 
lost in the distance. Eastward the sources of the Weber and Provo fill the 



72 THE RESOURCES CF UTAH. 

fore iri'o unci, wliilc successive inountain ranges bound the view in that direc- 
tion. Words can give but a faint idea of the inafrniflcence of the outlook 
froui Bald Peak, or Kesler's Peak, or any other of the higlier summits in the 
vicinity of Mary's Lake. 

Amrrican Fork. — South of the Cottonwoods, American Fork Canon opens 
into tlie Utah Lake Basin. It has been called the Vosemite of Utah, and un- 
doubtedly its succession of wild gorges and timbered vales make it the most 
picturesque and interesting of any of the canons of the Wasatch. Formerly 
a narrow gange railroad, intersecting the Utah Southern at the village of 
American Fork, thirty-two miles south of Salt Lake City, enabled the visitor 
to see a part of it with little trouble. The road was unprofitable and was 
therefore taken up in 1878 and laid down in Spanish Fork Canon, further 
south. To visit it now one must take horse or carriage at American Fork, 
and the better way will be to take along a complete outfit for camping, al- 
though there are buildings at Deer Creek and at Forest City. The railroad 
never extended further than Deer Creek, twelve miles. Here one takes 
horses, eight miles, to Forest City, and then the ascent to the Miller mine, 
which gives prominence to the district, begins. It is four miles further, the 
mine being quite 11,000 feet in altitude. Once there, it is but a short climb 
to the top of the peak, nearly as high as any of the range, and affording a 
most magnificent and almost unbounded view in fine weather. 

This canon is noted not only for the towering altitude of its enclosing 
walls, but for the picturesqueneSsof the infinite shapes, resembling artificial 
objects, towers, pinnacles, and minarets chiefiy, into which the elements have 
Avorn them. At first the formation is granite and the cliffs rise to a lofty 
height almost vertically. Then come quartzite or rocks of looser texture, 
conglomerates and sandstones, the canon opens to the sky and you enter a 
long gallery the sides of which recede at an angle of 45 degrees to a dizzy 
height, profusely set 'with these elemental sculptures in endless variety of 
size and pattern, often stained with rich colors. "Towers, battlements, 
shattered castles, and the images of mighty sentinels," says one, "exhibit 
their outlines against the sky. Rocks twisted, gnarled, and distorted; here 
a mass like the skeleton of some colossal tree which lightning had wrenched 
and burnt to fixed cinder; there another, vast and overhanging, apparently 
crumbling and threatening to fall and ruin. At Deer Creek the canon proper 
ceases,. the rqi\d has climbed out of it, 2,500 feet in eight miles. This is the 
main resort of pleasure^ parties. Since the railroad was taken up, its bed 
has become a, wagon road, which continues to Forest City, eight miles above. 
The sujroundjngs are still niountainous, but there are breaks where the 
brooks come in, grassy hills, iispensaud pines. Forest City has been a great 
charcQaling station for many years. 

>.. T.o the sublimity of the canon scenery in summer an indescribable beauty 
is added. in .the autumn, when the deciduous trees and shrubbery on a thou- 
.sand slopes, touched by the frost, present the colors of a rich painting and 
meet .the eye, wherever it rests. To get the full benefit of this, one must go 
up and up till there is nothing higher to climb. In winter another and ven' 
different pha.se succeeds. The snows, descending for days and days in 
blinding clouds, bury the forests and fill the canon. Accumulating to a 



MINERAL SPRINGS, ETC. 73 

great depth on high and steep acclivities, it starts without warning and 
buries in ruin whatever may be in its traclr. Hardly a year passes that 
miners and teamsters, wagons and cabins are not swept away and buried 
out of sight for months. The avalanche of the Wasatch is quite as formid- 
able as that of the Alps. Probably 40 feet of snow falls on the main range 
every winter. Seven miles of tramway in Little Cottonwood Canon are 
closely and strongly shedded for defense against the awful avalanche. Even 
this is not always effectual. Yet the main traveled roads over this range, 
whether wagon or railroads, are but little obstructed by snow as a general 
thing. 

Utah Basin. — This has been treated as a part of Salt Lake Basin, but it is 
shut off by a low range cut through by the Jordan River and run through by 
the Utah Southern Railroad. Its prettiest feature is a sheet of sweet water 
thirty miles In length and about ten in breadth, with broad grassy slopes from 
the water's edge to the feet of enclosing mountains. It receives the 
American, Provo, and Spanish rivers, and discharges into Great Salt Lake 
through the River Jordan. It abounds in fish, principally speckled trout, of 
large size and good flavor. This made it a noted res'Ort of the Utah Indians 
in former days, after whom the lake, the county, and the Territory seem to 
have been named. It is a pity the other Indian names of springs and creeks 
in this pretty basin have not been likewise preserved — Timpanogas, Pomont- 
quint, Waketeke, Pimquan, Pequinnetta, Petenete, Pungun, Watage, Onapah, 
Timpa, Mouna, and so on. They have all been superseded and their 
memory is fast passing away as the Indians themselves have done. 

" On the Timpanogas (Provo) bottoms," said Lieutenant Gunnison, 30 
years ago, " wheat grows most luxuriantly, and the root crops are seldom 
excelled. A continuous field can be made thence to the Waketeke (Summit) 
Creek, and tlie lovely Utah Valley made to sustain a population of more than 
100,000 inhabitants." The field was long since made, and the population 
HOW numbers 15,000. The principal town is Provo, on the Timpanogas, un- 
der the overshadowing Wasatch. It is like all the other of the better class 
of towns in Utah, regularly laid out, but after all an accumulation of garden 
spots, every house half hidden by the foliage of fruit trees and vines. Provo 
is about fifty miles by rail south of Salt Lake City, and is a fourth good out- 
fitting point for the toui'ist. The principal attractions in the vicinity are 
Utah Lake apd the Provo River. The latter has the inevitable canon, above 
which a fine carriage road leads through a succession of settled Alpine val- 
leys to Kamas Prairie, which Captain Stansbury describes as "a most lovely, 
fertile, level prairie, ten or twelve miles long and six or seven miles wide," 
where the affluents of the Provo and Weber interlock. The drive may pro- 
ceed down the Weber to Ogden if one desire, with the same alternation of 
land-locked valleys and mountain gorges. A dozen thriving settlements will 
have been passed through en route. 

Six miles south of Provo is Springville, where the Utah & Pleasant Valley 
Railroad may be taken up Spanish Fork into the finest timbered, tallest 
grassed, best watered section of Utah, presenting a fresh field for hunting 
and fishing. All along here the Wasatch Range presents a most interesting 
aspect, and frequently offers access via canons of more or less attractiveness. 
An isolated ridge trending north and south, west of the lake, divides the basin 



74 THK HKSOUllCES OF UTAH. 

luto separate halves, cutting off Cedar, and Goshen valleys, dry for the most 
part and of little account, slopini; gradually up for twenty miles to the sum- 
mit of Oquirrh, 0,000 feet high, on the western side of which are the Tintic 
mines. 

Utah Lake Basin may be said to end in the vicinity of Nephi, under Mount 
Nebo, where Onapah (Salt Creek) Canon opens the way for another side 
railroad into San Fete Valley, with its eight or ten settlements and 10,000 to 
12,000 inhabitants. From the head of San Pete one may find his way north- 
ward into Spanish Fork, or eastward over a mountain into Thistle or Castle 
valleys. Southward the valley opens on the Sevier River, a world it itself, 
•with passes of the most majestic grandeur through ranges on either hand 
fnto adjoining valleys. A journey up the Sevier in fine weather is very inter- 
esting, and so is the region about its heads, where the waters divide and flow 
apart. The town of Kanarra marks the vei'y crest of the rim, the waters 
flowi ng from the village north and south. The character of the Colorado 
River scenery is well known. A high sandstone plateau, cut by the river and 
side streams a mile in depth, too dry for animal or vegetable life, worthless 
for the most part unless for minerals. The river is hardly navigable above 
Fort Yuma. The scenery is described as more terrible than beautiful, and 
traveling through the country as dilHcult, if not dangerous. 

The physical features of Utah, mountain and desert and salt sea, are pe- 
culiar and of perennial interest. The Territory has all the resources of an 
empire within itself. Its climate is healthful and agreeable. It is in the 
heart of the mountain country. Railroads radiate hence to the four cardinal 
points. The great routes of inland commerce, between the oceans, and be- 
tween Mexico and British America, intersect at Ogden. Our valleys are of 
inexhaustible fertility and our mountains full of minerals. The farms and 
mines are but a step from each other. Every valley and mining canon has 
its railroad and its rushing stream. Labor and food are as cheap as they 
ever ought to be. No better mines or facilities for working them exist any- 
where. There is no more handy or profitable market for the farmer. There 
is unlimited water power, and a flue start in manufacturing has been made. 
Timber, coal, iron, and good building stone are everywhere. Nature has 
richly endowed the Territory in many respects. A hardy and industrious 
population of 130,000 is on the ground. The greatest want at present is cap- 
ital. It is believed that no Western State or Territory offers greater induce- 
ments to judicious investment. 



^\ 



017 063 644 2 



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